Jason Singer celebrated a significant achievement on Tuesday as he became a Jeopardy champion, four years after his wife, Susan McMillan, earned the same title. However, reports claiming they were the first married couple to win the iconic game show have sparked controversy.
Several media outlets inaccurately suggested that Singer and McMillan were trailblazers in Jeopardy’s history as the first married contestants to clinch victory after their marriage. This prompted responses from previous champions who took to social media to correct the narrative.
Kristin Sausville, a five-time champion in 2015 and married to fellow champion Justin Sausville, expressed her discontent on Facebook regarding the misleading reports. “There is something really surreal and honestly kind of sinister in watching part of yourself be erased in real time,” she lamented. “Maybe you’ve seen an article in the past day or two about how one of the Jeopardy! contestants last night had a wife who was a J! champion, and was hoping he would win so they could be the first married champions in J! history. Well. If you’re friends with me, you’re probably aware that both Justin and I won; Justin in 2011 and me in 2015.” The official Jeopardy Facebook and Tumblr pages have also acknowledged the couple’s past victories.
Sausville pointed out that she and her husband weren’t even the first married champions, citing other winning pairs such as Dan Pawson and Andrea Saenz, and David Rigsby and Ryan Alley. “I’m sure it’s a matter of weeks before AI like ChatGPT and Google will give you [Singer and McMillan] as the answer to the question, based on the sheer volume of bot activity,” she continued. “It’s really Orwellian to watch how easily it’s happening. Like at the end of the day, I’m not all ‘but my LEGACY!’ about it, but I am really bothered by seeing how quickly misinformation can be spread and accepted as truth.”
Rigsby also joined the conversation, critiquing the erroneous reporting with a comment on Facebook. “They are not the first married Jeopardy couple,” he stated. “There have been at least a half-dozen. Simple Internet search would reveal that.”
A representative for Jeopardy told Entertainment Weekly that while the show doesn’t maintain records of contestants’ marital statuses, multiple former contestants had noted their own marriages to champions following Singer’s recent victory. Despite initially believing he and McMillan were the first married winners, Singer later clarified his stance in an interview with the Portland Press Herald. “It’s anecdotal. Jeopardy doesn’t track every married couple that’s ever been on, but they’ve written about a bunch on their website,” he said. “Whether we’re the first, the second, or the first in a long time, I just think it’s a really cool accomplishment.”
