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‘Wheel of Fortune’ player says he was ‘humiliated’ after fumbling ‘easy puzzle’ in pursuit of lifelong dream

Contestant finally addressed the backlash he recieved over absurdly wrong guess– 'the sad part is...'

‘Wheel of Fortune’ contestant Christopher Coleman broke his silence on the fateful episode that caused outrage among the fans. In an infamous episode of the show, Coleman and his fellow contestants, Thomas Lipscomb and Laura Machado, couldn’t guess a simple puzzle. Almost all the blanks were filled in for the phrase “Another feather in your cap.” Not one but all three players couldn’t guess it correctly. One of them went far off the rail, guessing “map” and “lap” instead of “cap.” Fans caused a ruckus, and the players received criticism for remaining unresponsive in that round.

Colman finally addressed the backlash in an interview with TMZ. “This idiom [‘Another feather in your cap’] is something I learned when I was 6 or 7 years old. But I haven’t heard it in over 30 years, and so it has been a while for me,” he told the outlet. He also admitted to being under a lot of scrutiny and pressure while under production and playing in front of the camera. He further called out the angry fans who are sitting in the comfort of their homes and screaming at their TVs. “When we [the contestants] are the ones in the moment and in real time, trying to guess and figure out what this puzzle is,” he added.

The former contestant admitted that it was wrong of people to question the players’ intelligence and accuse them of belittling their degrees. “The sad part is that people are saying that we [the contestants] were not intelligent and were trying to belittle our college degrees,” he added. Coleman also had a message for the “trolls” that attacked him on social media. “What I would say to the trolls is that, ‘You go up there. Half of you don’t even have public speaking skills,” he said. Coleman stressed that being on the show and playing the game live is quite difficult. “And then it will be a whole another conversation when they are trending and making donkeys of themselves,” he said to the internet trolls.

He continued to defend himself and asked the fans to have more empathy, grace, and understanding towards him and his fellow players. “We are very educated people, and we don’t want to be put in a situation where we are being cackled and publicly humiliated on a show that was a lifelong dream,” he added. Coleman went on to admit that he doesn’t have many regrets in life because he learned from all his mistakes. However, he took accountability for choosing the wrong option and spinning the wheel instead of guessing the puzzle in his second try.

Many fans of the show bashed the awfully wrong guess, including celebrity Josh Gad. “God help us all,” the Frozen actor wrote on X. Then host Pat Sajak also took to social media to request viewers to go easy on the contestants. Sakak shared a tweet on X, asking the trolls to “have a little heart,” as reported by The Post. He admitted that it “pains” him to have amazing contestants on the show to win money and fulfil their dream, but instead get bashed on by the netizens. He didn’t like that the players were subjected to “online ridicule when they make a mistake or something goes awry.”