A “Jeopardy!” episode airing next week has taken an emotional turn after one of its contestants, Cindy Stowell, died of cancer at the age of 41 on Monday.
Stowell, a science-content developer from Austin, Texas, taped the quiz show back in August, and the episode is set to premiere on Dec. 13, a “Jeopardy!” spokesperson confirmed. This marks the first posthumous airing of a contestant’s appearance.
“When Cindy Stowell taped her appearance on ‘Jeopardy!,’ she had Stage IV cancer. Competing on ‘Jeopardy!’ was a lifelong dream for Cindy, and we’re glad she was able to do so,” said host Alex Trebek in a statement provided to The Post. “Sadly, Cindy died on Dec. 5. All of us at ‘Jeopardy!’ offer our condolences and best wishes to her family and friends.”
Her death and forthcoming “Jeopardy!” appearance was first announced on Twitter by her longtime boyfriend Jason Hess, who posted that “She was fighting a high-grade fever (which turned out to be a blood infection) and was on painkillers while taping.” Stowell competed with the goal of donating her prize winnings to cancer-related organizations.
“Cindy came on ‘Jeopardy!’ to play the game she loved and in doing so, she was able to make a contribution to cancer research in the hopes that no one else would have to go through what she did,” said her mother Carole Stowell, brother Greg Stowell and Hess in a joint statement.
Only Trebek and a select group of staffers knew that she was sick. Stowell, who had a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, first passed the online audition test in early 2016, and received an invitation to an in-person audition in Oklahoma City this past summer. She was able to tape three weeks after qualifying, on Aug. 31, after she informed a show producer that she had recently been told by her doctor that she had about six months to live.
Chelsea Cohen, a production editor at Simon & Schuster in New York, filmed her “Jeopardy!” episode the same day as Stowell and said that fellow contestants did not realize she was sick.
“She was very nice, very quiet, just a very nice person to be around,” Cohen tells The Post.
Another contestant, Bridget McNulty, tweeted that “She taped the same day as me, she was an awesome person and brought a great cheering squad.”
The family has asked that people who are touched by Stowell’s story to consider a donation to the Cancer Research Institute in her name.