JEOPARDY! contestant Claire Sattler has opened up about the dark side of winning big.
The 2018 Teen Tournament champ – back for Mayim Bialik’s current special – claimed cyberbullies “stalked” her and made horrific accusations at the time.
ABCMayim Bialik is hosting the 3-week-long High School Reunion Tournament[/caption]
Jeopardy!Return contestant Claire Sattler opened up about the disturbing backlash to winning in 2018[/caption]
She claimed cyberbullies ‘stalked’ her and accused her of ‘having sex with Alex Trebek’ on TikTokTikTok/ClaireSat
Mayim, 47, is now hosting the 14-episode High School Reunion Tournament featuring 27 former Teen Tournament contestants who first duked it out in 2018 and 2019.
The winner will get $100,000 and a slot in the 2023 Tournament of Champions – after which point Ken Jennings, 48, will return for another month.
Claire is now a senior at Yale University who is from Bonita Springs, Florida, and is competing in Monday’s quarter-finals episode.
Claire was 16 when she won the 2018 Teen Tournament, so she’s a front-runner as one of the two past winners the tournament has pulled from.
‘STALKERS, NATIONWIDE BULLYING’
Claire revealed she received a heap of online scrutiny and gross messages after coming out on top at that time – leaving her with “emotional damage.”
Claire claimed some people even found her private social media accounts and others horrifically accused her of sexual activity with then-host Alex Trebek to win.
The video began with the text: “What was it like being on Teen Jeopardy?” as Claire held up a framed photo of her and the host, who passed away in November 2020.
“Stalkers. Nationwide cyberbullying,” she wrote, as she showed a screenshot of an email she received that said someone had started following her on Google+ account.
She continued: “Being accused of having [sex] with a 79-year-old man (as a 16-year-old) for the answers. Because you weren’t smart enough to win on your own apparently.”
A fourth image in the video more lightly showed the contestant on stage in the finals in dabbing poses and she joked over it: “this.”
Claire captioned the video with two party emojis and hashtags “#jeopardy #emotionaldamage #ripalextrebek #trauma and #anxiety.”
‘I’M SO SORRY’
The video went viral in 2022 and was set under the Bastille song Pompeii mixed with audio of someone yelling: “Emotional damage.”
Jeopardy! fans flooded Claire’s intense post with support as one user wrote: I’m so sorry you went through all that.”
Another user wrote: “I was on Wheel of Fortune at 19 years old. I thought my trolls were bad.”
“My friend was on the show as a kid. His experience was different, likely because he is male. People really go after teen girls for petty s**t.” wrote a third.
“I hope the bullying has stopped,” someone else wrote. “That’s ridiculous.”
“So sorry this happened to you,” another TikTok user agreed. “I watched your original appearance and you were such a great player. F****n sucks that people treat you this way.”
“I loved you and Emma [Arnold]. you were both incredible,” wrote a fifth.
“The dabbing is the most traumatic,” one more joked lightening the mood.
“Was Alex as nice as I hoped?” one additional fan asked as Claire happily replied: “He was so funny and being on set was so awesome! the aftermath, not so much.”
When Claire was announced as competing once more today on Instagram, a fan commented: “Let’s go CLAIRE!!!”
She more recently revealed on her now-popular page she’s a theater major and aspiring comedian turning her tragic hate messages into something positive.
So far the semi-finalists of the new, ongoing tournament are Jackson Jones, 2019 Teen Tournament winner Avi Gupta, Brown freshman Justin Bolsen who became a fan-favorite with a bold Daily Double bet last Wednesday, and Maya Wright, a senior at Emory.
The semi-finals will begin later this week as the students are dismissed and until three remain for a two-day total point affair finals.
TikTok/ClaireSatClaire Sattler claimed her 2018 win resulted in ‘stalkers’ and ‘nationwide bullying’[/caption]
She claimed that random solicitors tried contacting her in the intense videoTikTok/ClaireSatJeopardy! / TikTokClaire claimed haters wildly ‘accused of having [sex] with a 79-year-old man for the answers’ – fans are thrilled she’s returning for Mayim Bialik’s tournament[/caption]
