Navy vet stomps her foot in regret after one impossible puzzle cost her $100K — honestly, we’d feel the same
‘Wheel of Fortune’ is a game of luck, and the contestants often have to bear unexpected losses on the show. However, it stings way more when a huge cash prize is involved. Something similar happened to Nekeia Borders, a Navy veteran from Dallas, Texas, who had to deal with an extremely hard puzzle in the Bonus Round. Borders was acing the entire episode, leaving her fellow players behind. The contestant, who is a supervisor at a major chain in a shopping center, competed against Abby Gerlemann from Hermann, Missouri, and Patrick Thomassie from Chicago, Illinois. Although she solved only two puzzles, she received a game-changing Wild Card.
After reaching the Bonus Round, Borders opted for the Phrase category and chose D, M, P, I, and C as her additional letters. The final puzzle she was presented with was: L_ _ _ _ _C _ _ IT_ _ _N_NESS. When host Ryan Seacrest started the 10-second timer, she started making random guesses, naming words like “kindness,” “mindness,” and “l.” She didn’t get it right, as the answer was “Look back with kindness.” This was followed by the host unveiling the whopping $100,000 prize amount and a trip to India.
The reveal made her stomp her feet out of regret. But she quickly held back her reaction, saying, “It’s okay.” Although she missed out on the additional cash prize, she took home $34,000 and was happy about that. “I’m not complaining,” she added. Fans flocked to the YouTube comment section, reacting to the hard puzzle. “Yea that was impossible. You had to call the right letters to have any chance,” one fan commented. “KILLER puzzle. Unlucky to get that one. No way anyone is solving that,” another wrote.
“That was very difficult puzzle, but she still took home a bulk of cash! Congratulations,” a third netizen pointed out. “I was thinking of kindness but can never think of fondness,” a fourth wrote. “Ouch! This was a rough one to lose it all!” another fan exclaimed. “Honestly, that puzzle was VERY hard. PHRASE had a good winning streak in Bonus Land recently until this one. It's too bad she landed on the big one,” another added. “She had almost half the alphabet to work with and still couldn’t get it. I didn’t have it, either—only word I got was WITH. Very tough puzzle,” one viewer wrote.
Although Borders made it to the Bonus Round, it wasn’t a steep win. She solved the $2000 toss-up round and had only that much in her bank until the fourth round. In that round, she got $6,000 per consonant. She solved the puzzle “Welcome to the Jungle” during this round, and it led her total amount to $34,000. Her competitor, Thomassie, a huge Britney Spears fan, had $19,298 in her bank account in addition to earning a trip to Spain. The third player, Gerlemann, also won big that night. The stay-at-home mom left with a whopping $21,350, paving the way for Borders to reach the final round.