Jeopardy! Ken Jennings Shares How He Has Contributed to His Success
Ken Jennings Shares How His Mormon Faith Has Contributed to His Success
Courtesy of ‘Jeopardy!’/YouTube
Courtesy of ‘Jeopardy!’/YouTube
Ken Jennings chalks up his success and personality to his Jeopardy! career. The game show host appeared on a podcast to talk about his success.
Jennings talked with W. Kamau Bell, Season 3 Celebrity Jeopardy! winner, on his Who’s With Me? Podcast on September 9. He also spoke out on the podcast about how he stands up for trans and LGBTQ+ rights, and it is “not performative.”
“Like when I say that I have convictions of right and wrong that run deeper than my desire to keep my extremely well-paid job,” Jennings said in a clip posted to Bell’s Instagram page. “If I ever had to choose, I would go with the convictions. That’s all from my church upbringing.”
Jennings was raised in The Church of Latter-day Saints, which is more commonly known as the Mormon church. According to his website bio, Jennings spent two years in Madrid, Spain, on a Mormon mission before attending college.
“I do feel like having that anchor of faith was a very important part of keeping myself grounded when I somehow became rich and famous on a game show,” he said. “What do you do? What’s the right way to be in that situation?”
“Think what an a-hole I would be without that kind of upbringing, you know?”
Bell responded that it makes sense that a person who had that upbringing and was instilled with the Mormon values that he “wouldn’t be knocked off his square by the wilderness of suddenly ‘I’m the most winningest Jeopardy! champion ever, and I’ve got $3 million.’”
“You’re not suddenly going like, ‘I’m going to the VIP room at the Viper Room in L.A.,” Bell said.
“Make it rain,” Jennings joked. “There are so few strip clubs in my Jeopardy! success story.” Despite being the winningest Jeopardy! champion of all-time, Jennings thought The Viper Room was a strip club, when really it is a famous West Hollywood music venue.
“We finally found a category that Ken would do badly on if it came up on @jeopardy,” Bell ended his post.
Jeopardy!, Season 43, weekdays, check local listings, stream next day on Hulu and Peacock
