The Time Pat Sajak Defended Wheel Of Fortune Contestants Against Online Bullying

Add "defender of the cyber-bullied" to the list of reasons why we all love Pat Sajak. The longtime host of the award-winning TV game show "The Wheel of Fortune" told online bullies to "cut [contestants] some slack" after witnessing an incredible amount of bashing happening to a group of contestants on his long-running show. To show his support for the bullied, he went on Twitter and gave a reprimanding to the online harassers. His message included a thoughtful response as to why contestants on the show can often have a lapse in judgment.

Like all game shows, "Wheel of Fortune" has had plenty of fail moments, but few fails have drawn so much backlash from viewers that Sajak had to take to social media to remind them to be kind. Unfortunately for the three contestants playing "Wheel of Fortune" in March 2022, they were the targets of the bullying. The phrase to guess was "another feather in your cap." With only a few blanks left to fill in, it was an opportune moment to try to solve the puzzle. And try they did, but everything from "map" to "lap" was used to guess that final word. For viewers, the two minutes were frustrating enough that they felt the need to vent online rather harshly.

All of us have had that feeling where we have a word we're looking for to describe something, but we just can't get it out of our head and onto our tongue. It can be downright frustrating, right? But when we're watching something on a screen while seated comfortably on the sofa, we suddenly become the masters of, well, everything. "I could totally do that," we might say after witnessing a contestant fail to scale a mountain challenge in time. Or, maybe we're a whiz at trivia and can't help but roll our eyes when someone on a show completely bombs a question. In that situation, it's a challenge to remember that everyone has slip-ups, and this is what Pat Sajak reminded his followers in his series of tweets reprimanding those doing the online pummeling.

"Good-natured laughter is one thing. Heck, they laughed at themselves," he recalled. "But, hey, cut them some slack. Unless you're there, you have no idea how different it is in the studio." He added, "[M]ocking them online and calling them names? These are good people in a bad situation under a kind of stress that you can't begin to appreciate from the comfort of your couch."

It's kind of a shock to think of Pat Sajak clapping back at bullies, but you can bet he did so in the most good-natured way possible.

Sajak, who recently filled in the blanks about his future with "The Wheel of Fortune," is known for his friendly and amicable personality that makes him just the right fit for the show (seriously, what are we going to do without him as host?). That personality shone through in his calm and kind response to the bullies making fun of the game show's participants. In his tweets, he reminded his viewers to "have a little heart" and be empathetic to the contestants. At the same time, he showed some empathy with the game show fans who found the situation funny. "I have fun with players and I tease them occasionally, but when things go wrong, I feel for them, and I try to salve the wounds on camera and off," he wrote. "So, yeah, it was an oddly entertaining puzzle and it's okay to laugh at the situation."

He finished off his thoughts by asking bullies to put themselves in the shoes of the ridiculed contestants. "No one wants to be trending on Twitter," he concluded.