Ken Jennings Admits ‘Very Tough Decision’ After Jeopardy! Fans criticized the show’s judgment

DANGER! host Ken Jennings took the blame for a highly contested decision that met with fury from fans during an episode last week.

Ken, 50, addressed the Bridival Falls moment in a postgame clip shared on Inside Jeopardy! podcast.

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On Monday’s edition of the weekly podcast Jeopardy!, producers played the audio clip of Ken talking to the contestants.

On last Wednesday’s episode, fans were stunned when Ken deemed Kelly Proulx’s “Bridevail Falls” answer incorrect just because she added an “S.”

“Well, you three played well, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion until the end,” Ken told the contestants.

“Unfortunately, ‘Bridavail Falls’ with an ‘S,’” he began to tell Kelly.

“You know, it turned out that no one knew [Final Jeopardy was] ‘Mary Queen of Scotts’, so it didn’t matter.

“I’m glad it didn’t come down to my decision being too harsh on the ‘S,’” to which Kelly laughed nervously.

Ken applauded Isaac Hirsch, who won his first game, and concluded, “You three made it into the program, which is the hard part.”

Kelly was the one-day champion and lost to Isaac, who has since won three games and earned $70,186.

‘TRASH DECLARATION’

On the July 3 episode, Kelly answered the $2,000 clue in the Double Jeopardy “Waterfalls” category.

The clue was: “A Yosemite waterfall with a thin ribbon of water that floats in the air like a diaphanous cloth is named after this marital outfit.”

The returning champion replied, “What is Bridalveil Falls?”

Ken – along with the judges – determined that her answer was incorrect.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s actually Wedding Veil autumn, so we couldn’t accept that. It’s, ‘What is a Wedding Veil?'”

Fans were outraged by what they considered a nit-picky rule and several took it out on the presenter.

“The category was “Waterfalls”! What’s wrong with “Bridal Veil Waterfalls”?” one angry viewer wrote on the X. “I screamed ‘You idiot’ at the screen.”

Another was “ready to individually fight the #Jeopardy judges for finding ‘Bridalveil Falls’ wrong because of the extra “s” that weren’t pertinent to the clue.”

“Normally I give judges long and wide deference, but fuck the judges for this decision. There’s nothing identifying the clue to ‘drop’, so she got the information right. That was positively disgusting,” wrote a third on Reddit.

“Yes, that is a brutal decision on the last clue,” wrote a fourth user.

“And that made the game out of control. Brutal decision,” wrote a fifth.

“This decision was rubbish,” wrote a sixth bluntly.

On X, another user wrote: “@Jeopardy just tricked champ Kelly by not accepting Bridal Veil Falls because it’s actually ‘Fall’.”

They added: “But they accepted ‘larynx’ for larynx. Make sense.”

Others argued that Kelly was technically wrong; If she had not added “falls,” but simply “Bridalvail,” it would have been considered correct.

“There is a clear distinction between the one in Yosemite (singular) and many others in the US (plural, including the smallest of the three parts of Niagara Falls),” the viewer pointed out.

“The clue specifically referred to Yosemite — and the waterfall in Yosemite is ‘Bridal Veil Fall,’” another person noted.

Isaac ended up with an $18,000 lead, making Final Jeopardy inconsequential.

HIRSCH’S HOT STREEK

Meanwhile, Isaac has continued to win since that episode and is now in the show’s last big streak.

The Burbank, California-based customer support team leader has notched two of his three breakout victories and has shown no signs of slowing down.

In 2023, Isaac won $140,000 on the ABC game show The Chase.

In 2017, Isaac also appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, winning $5,000.

Isaac is also a second-generation Jeopardy! contestant, his father lost on Jeopardy! 30 years ago, as he shared during his first victory.

Addressing your wardrobe ‘haters’

The champion also drew attention for his eye-catching vintage outfits, which he addressed in an Instagram post over the weekend.

“Well, this is going better than expected!” Isaac wrote alongside a slideshow of photos including him posing with Ken and his father competing in the 1980s.

“I actually went into this with little confidence – as a local substitute I watched seven games being filmed before recording and found myself doing really poorly in the green room and having buzzer trouble in rehearsal.

“But at this point I’ve kind of figured out the bell and they’re asking about things I’ve heard about, which is really cool of them. We’ll see if I can keep things going next week!

“The Internet is divided on my love of ’70s menswear. Good news for the haters: I’m almost out of wardrobe-approved vintage shirts, so if I keep winning, the fits will get a lot more understated.

“I should also mention that my last two shirts were gifts from my stylist/girlfriend.”

Isaac will look for his fourth win on tonight’s episode – Jeopardy! airs at 7pm ET.

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