Whenever game show contestants make wildly bad guesses or manage to lose out after coming so close to winning, it’s not so uncommon for viewers to play armchair quarterback while yelling any number of NSFW comments at the TV. Less common, however, are such exclamations from those heading up the game shows themselves. But that hasn’t stopped some Wheel of Fortune fans from thinking Vanna White dropped an F-bomb on the air.
Understandably, the moment in question didn’t take place during the usual in-studio portion of Wheel of Fortune’s episode filming. (I can only imagine if Vanna responded to a contestant’s request to buy an E with “Fuck no, you can’t.”) After the winning contestant walked away from the Bonus Round with a brand new vehicle, Seacrest cued up a pretaped clip from a ski trip to Park City the co-stars took together. Although calling it a “ski trip” implies both successfully traversed a slope or two, and that definitely wasn’t the case.
Seacrest facetiously claimed that White “panicked” after he took a wrong turn, and in the video we see, the radio host’s wrong turn happened almost immediately after he tried to confidently push himself forward. And it’s indeed how White reacts that plays into viewers’ hearing more mature language than what game shows usually offer up. Here’s the exchange:
- RYAN: All right, thanks for watching from this winter wonderland. See you next time on Wheel of Fortune!
- VANNA: Bye! Oooh! [QUESTIONABLE]
- RYAN [now laid out facefirst in the snow]: Too big of a slope for me.
- VANNA: I’m gonna go help Ryan. Bye-bye!
It’s a goofy bit, though I genuinely bought into the notion that Vanna White was not comfortable with the idea of zipping around snowy mountains with skis attached. I can also buy into the belief that Vanna would be the most fashionable person standing on any mountain at any given time, but that’s beside the point.
Soon after the episode aired, one fan took to Reddit to see if they were alone in assuming that Vanna exclaimed “Fuck!” after seeing Seacrest tumble. As the OP wrote in the comments of the post:
I swear she says the F word! . . . I keep trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she said duck lol NOPE!
To that Redditor’s credit, the audio from the recorded video in the post sounds tinny and sharp enough that it does actually sound like an F-bomb, even if it wasn’t muttered under her breath as it probably would have been had she accidentally cursed on TV.
But it almost definitely was not “fuck” that spewed forth from the co-host’s mouth. When rewatching the episode with my YouTube TV subscription, I put the closed captions on, and it confirmed my belief that all she said there was “Look!” since the camera goes to Seacrest right after she says it.
And I think we can all agree on how unlikely it is that an episode taped and edited far in advance of airing would have left an F-bomb in there untouched. I can’t even imagine a world where a bleeped-out version of that moment would air, and can only assume it would have been re-recorded if Vanna did indeed let one slip.
One can assume that Vanna helped Seacrest up, and without cursing him out, since we already know how kind and giving she’s been to him during his freshman year as Wheel of Fortune host. (And he still chose to amusingly prank her for Christmas.) She also thought it would be a fun idea to ask fans to give him a nickname, though that may have gone slightly more askew than she expected.
That Other Time Ryan Seacrest Fell Down Recently
Snowy weather doesn’t need to enter into the picture for Ryan Seacrest to take a random tumble in front of Wheel of Fortune viewers. In the same week that his ski stumble happened, the esteemed host also lost his footing on the set itself thanks to an overly joyous contestant.
Ouch @RyanSeacrest just got knocked over!! #wheeloffortune @TheVannaWhite pic.twitter.com/MJzM7OAvxtJanuary 22, 2025
After the winner hugged and grabbed onto Seacrest in the midst of leaping up and down, he let go at just the wrong moment, sending the American Idol emcee down for a quick count. Hopefully he’ll manage to stay upright for the remainder of episodes airing this week.
