Jeopardy contestant Scott Riccardi did not lose on purpose — despite what the internet might think.
“Congratulations to Jonathan for the amazing win! It’s truly deserved, and I can’t wait to see him return next season; he is a powerful competitor and all-around wonderful guy,” Riccardi shared in a statement posted via Reddit on Friday, July 25. “Kudos to Charlotte as well for a very strong showing in tonight’s game.”
He was referring to new champ Jonathan Hugendubler and fellow competitor Charlotte Cooper. Hugendubler beat out Riccardi, who had a 16-day winning streak on the game show.
“I apologize that I didn’t have any earlier opportunities to be active in these discussion threads, but I’m thankful for all the kind and insightful comments throughout what has been a completely surreal experience for me,” Riccardi continued. “I hope I didn’t overstay my welcome on the Alex Trebek stage for everyone who watched. There were too many talented challengers to be able to list them all here, but I’m hoping to be a proud supporter of each and every one of them in the hopes that they make up a sizeable subgroup of Second Chance competitors.”
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Riccardi’s impressive Jeopardy run came to an end on Friday after incorrectly answering the final clue, which was in the “20th Century Names” category.
“According to one obituary, in 1935 he owned 13 magazines, eight radio stations, two movie companies and $56 million in real estate,” the clue read.
The correct answer was William Randolph Hearst, but Riccardi responded with Howard Hughes.
“As for Final Jeopardy, my mind unfortunately went straight to Howard Hughes mostly due to overestimating the importance of the movie companies’ part of the clue; any previous FJs that had come to mind immediately had worked out, so I trusted my initial response on this,” Riccardi’s statement continued. “Hearst wasn’t on my mind at all until the moment Charlotte’s answer was revealed, and even then, it didn’t immediately strike me as correct until Ken [Jennings] confirmed it.”
Riccardi noted that he was “just especially unprepared” to answer questions about Hearst, admitting that he made a “mental note” about it before going on the game show.
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“I was consistently forgetting to consider, of all things, Citizen Kane and the Tower of London as responses whenever they came up in archived practice clues; in the green room that week, I reminded myself about the Tower of London but could not remember the other half of that mental note,” he added. “Also, before I started my prep for the show in earnest, I had found that I was having a hard time properly retaining info on what I found to be a confusing amount of three-named Williams in publishing (William Randolph Hearst, William Lloyd Garrison, and William F. Buckley, to name a few), never circling back to that thought after I got the call to be on the show.”
He chalked up the loss to “several information near-misses and a poor understanding of the timeline in the clue” in the end.
“I’m sure I have other scattered thoughts about this game and all the others; I’ll try to address what I can within a reasonable time,” Riccardi concluded. “Glad to have had the chance to be a meaningful part of this season!”
