Vanna White fears she will be fired from ‘Wheel of Fortune’: report
The “Wheel of Fortune” could stop spinning for Vanna White soon.
This week, longtime host Pat Sajak, 76, announced that he would be retiring from ABC’s hit game show after Season 41 in September – leaving co-host White, 66, without a partner-in-crime.
But while some fans are calling for letter-turning White to replace Sajak, she fears that she actually could be let go from the series, according to an insider.
“The next year is going to be quite the ride and Vanna wants to be a part of it all even after he leaves, and she hopes they don’t force her out,” a source close to White alleged to the Daily Mail on Tuesday.
But the source also claimed that White has no interest in leaving the show, which she joined in 1982 — a year after Sajak did, in 1981 — and even has aspirations to become Sajak 2.0.
“Vanna doesn’t want to leave ‘Wheel of Fortune’ even after Pat’s announcement of retirement, and she would highly consider taking over his role as host on the show,” the insider claimed.
The Post has reached out to White’s representatives for further comment.
The alleged insider even added that White is “in it for the long haul” and “would like to be a part of the selection process for Pat’s replacement, because if it is up to her, she is in it forever.”
Her contract for the game show ends in 2024, according to the outlet.
But according to Bloomberg, there are others in the running — including longtime “American Idol” host and former “Live With Kelly” seat-filler Ryan Seacrest.
In his announcement, Sajak said that his four decades on the show have been a “wonderful ride.”
“Well, the time has come,” he wrote. “I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all. (If nothing else, it’ll keep the clickbait sites busy!)”
White later gave a “cheers” to her longtime co-host following the news.
“When we started @WheelofFortune who could have imagined we’d still be at it 41 seasons later?” White wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.
“I couldn’t be happier to have shared the stage with you for all these years with one more to come. Cheers to you, @patsajak!”
However, in a 2020 interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” White admitted that hosting the show wasn’t something that she was necessarily vying for.
White hosted the show for a few episodes in 2019, when Sajak went into surgery for a blocked intestine.
“Uhm, it’s not at the top of my list,” White admitted during an interview with the outlet at the time.
“I loved being there, I loved doing it. But I was so nervous. Maybe if I did it a few more times, I would feel better about it. But I’m my worst critic.”
