LeVar Burton: Not becoming 'Jeopardy!' host was 'humiliation'

LeVar Burton, one of several "Jeopardy!" guest hosts who had filled in for the late Alex Trebek last year, and whose fans had clamored for him to be named the program's permanent master of ceremonies, believes the decision had already been made before he got there.

"Well, the truth is it was my favorite game show. It really was," the actor and literacy advocate, 65, said in a preview of his interview for the streaming news channel Newsy's "In the Loop," airing Wednesday. "I mean, I watched that show since I was in the third grade and Art Fleming was the host. And I honestly thought that I was well-suited for it. As it turns out, it really wasn't a competition after all — the fix was in."

Following Trebek’s death in November 2020, the program aired two months of episodes he had prerecorded, then a number of guest hosts helmed the venerable game show beginning that January. Among them was the show’s executive producer, Mike Richards, who had little public recognition yet was named permanent host that August. The decision, wrote the trade magazine Variety at the time, "generated some clucking in the industry about whether there was a true competition among the more than 15 personalities who have served as guest hosts over the past eight months."

"Experiencing a very public defeat — humiliation, if you will — was sobering," said Burton, the former longtime host of the PBS educational program "Reading Rainbow." "And what I learned from the experience, really, is that it reinforced my belief that everything happens for a reason, even if you cannot discern the reason in the moment. In the fullness of time, everything will be revealed," he pledged, saying he had felt "not just disappointed, but wrecked — I didn't expect that I would not be their choice for host."

From that disappointment, however, "Doors have been opened," he said. "Windows have been opened. The phone hasn't stopped ringing" with offers that include hosting the finals of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee, airing live Thursday on the independent broadcast network Ion, seen locally on WPXN/31.

"So I think it was a big lesson for me," Burton concluded, "and just being willing to sit in the discomfort long enough to find out what was really supposed to happen for me around this game show thing."

A representative for Sony Pictures Television, which produces the syndicated show, did not respond to a Newsday request for comment on Burton's claim. Richards, within days of having been named host, exited the show entirely in response to unearthed podcast audio of him making vulgar remarks and using slurs for women, the developmentally challenged and others. As well, old lawsuits surfaced with allegations of sexist workplace behavior.

"The Big Bang Theory" star Mayim Bialik and former "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings currently alternate as hosts.