Tap dancer wins $100K on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ despite nearly bungling bonus round answer
A 'Wheel of Fortune' contestant nearly lost out on a bonus prize of $100,000 after adding a couple of unnecessary words to her answer. During the episode, Catrice Sandt, a tap dancer from Thomaston, Connecticut, competed against Nadia Exama, from Miami, Florida, and Roy Chinn, from Cypress, Texas. Luck seemed to be on Sandt's side when she landed on the Million Dollar Wedge during the Mystery Round, but it was short-lived. When she decided to spin the wheel again, she landed on Bankrupt and lost the big prize wedge.
The dancer bounced back in the Express Round by solving the ‘Places’ puzzle and winning an African Safari in Tanzania worth $12,900. Eventually, she took the lead with a total of $19,800. Despite not giving a single answer in the Triple Toss-Up or the Speed-Up rounds, Sandt maintained her position. In the end, she advanced to the Bonus Round, where she picked the ‘What Are You Doing?’ category, and chose the letters “B, G, M, and A.”
Sandt's choice of letters was great: her two-word puzzle looked like “B E G _ N N _ N G / A G A _ N.” Watching this, she couldn't keep calm, and Ryan Seacrest had to tell her, "Hold on, Catrice.” As the ten-second timer counted down, Sandt guessed, “I am beginning again." When the timer didn’t stop, she said, “Beginning again,” and Seacrest confirmed that it was the correct answer. Opening the golden envelope, the 'Wheel of Fortune' host added, “And Catrice, I need to show you this,” before revealing she had won an additional $100,000. In a moment of celebration, confetti fell all over the stage, and Sandt’s husband, stepfather, and mother rushed to the stage to hug her.
Once the episode aired, fans of the show shared their honest thoughts on Sandt's big win and how she nearly blew it by adding a few extra words to her answer. A Reddit user wrote, “She almost blew it there at the end by prefacing the answer with 'I am' before saying the answer!! She was wrong, but Ryan started to say she was right just before she actually just said the answer on its own!” Another clarified that as long as the full phrase is included in the response, adding a few extra words before it doesn’t lead to disqualification. They wrote, “There was another episode this season where a contestant answered, ‘Is it,’ then the puzzle, and it still counted. For example, ‘I am beginning again’ counts because the statement contains ‘beginning again.’ However, an answer like ‘beginning once again’ would not count.”
Another netizen argued, "Does it matter in the bonus round how she says the answer as long as the correct two words are spoken in the correct order? People babble stream of consciousness and sometimes stumble on the answer. It’s not like a regular round puzzle where you get one chance to say the answer.” Many agreed, with one pointing out that contestants are allowed to throw out as many options as they like during the 10 seconds, much like rapid-fire guessing.
