Somewhere the late Alex Trebek is shaking his head in disgust.
On an episode of “Jeopardy!” that aired Wednesday, contestant (and returning champion) Kelly Proulx buzzed in to answer a clue in the “Waterfalls” category. She added an extra “s” at the end of her response, which was enough for host Ken Jennings to deny her the points – something fans are calling “brutal.”
The clue read: “A Yosemite fall with a wispy ribbon of water that flutters in the air like a diaphanous cloth bears the name of this marital wear.”
Proulx answered, “What is Bridalveil Falls?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Jennings responded. “It’s actually Bridalveil Fall, so we couldn’t take that. It is, ‘What is a bridal veil?’”
Proulx didn’t win the game but fellow contestant Isaac Hirsch’s sizable lead, along with the failure of all three contestants to correctly guess the Final Jeopardy clue, meant that her incorrect response didn’t factor into her loss.
However, Jennings’ stickler ruling had many loyal fans complaining — and upset.
“Kelly should hold a grudge on this one,” one person wrote on the “Jeopardy!” Reddit page, while someone else called the decision against her answer “extremely pedantic.”
Another comment read, “Wow, Kelly was robbed. That ruling on Bridal Veil Fall/ Falls was ridiculous. Adding the S seems to fall firmly in ‘yea, we’ll take that’ territory.”
One person wrote, “I typically give long and wide deference to the judges, but f— the judges for that ruling. there is nothing pinning the clue to ‘fall’, so she got the required information correct. that was positively disgusting.”
Others explained that the issue is that judges were only looking for the name of the article of clothing – “bridal veil.” They argued that by choosing to give extra information in the full name of the location, it was on Proulx to be fully correct, down to the letter.
This isn’t the latest “Jeopardy!” clue backlash. Last week, fans lashed out about another clue – one involving actress Zendaya.
“Before somehow making tennis steamy in 2024, this single-named star guested on Disney Channel’s ‘Good Luck Charlie,'” the clue read.
Contestant Staci Garner guessed Zendaya correctly, but the vague clue left people confused online as the actress only appeared in one episode of “Good Luck Charlie.”
Jennings famously won a record 74 consecutive “Jeopardy!” matches before becoming the host of the famed game show after Alex Trebek’s death.