Vivian Tran was just a few letters away from winning $1 million on Wheel of Fortune, but nerves got between her and the huge jackpot.
Tran, a competitor on the game show’s Sept. 16 episode, had secured a spot in the Bonus Round after landing on the “One Million” wedge during the final round of regular gameplay.
The Bonus Round asked her to solve the category “What Are You Doing?” In addition to the default letters given to all players (R, S, T, L, N, E), Tran selected C, H, M, I and P.
“My heart is racing, this is a first for me,” host Ryan Seacrest, who took over for Pat Sajak following his retirement, said of the tense moment. “You’re playing for $1 million.”
Co-host Vanna White revealed the letters Tran had asked for, leaving “_ _ _ E R I N G S _ M E HELP” as the final puzzle prompt.
Before she began to guess, Tran said she was “nervous.”
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“Wondering some help? Answering some help? Finding some help? Looking around for some help? Boundary for help?” she said in the 10-second guessing window, her thought process on display.
Unfortunately, she never got to the correct answer of “Offering Some Help” and folded over when Seacrest opened the envelope to reveal she lost out on the $1-million prize.
“You were so close to that million dollars. You almost had it,” Seacrest sympathized. “Are you all right?”
“I’m OK,” she reassured him while in the throes of processing the moment.
She did, however, walk away with a good chunk of change — $27,300 — and a trip to Europe.
“It turned out great,” she told Wheel of Fortune‘s social correspondent Maggie Sajak after the show. “A little bit painful, but I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
“(Seacrest) kind of brought me into a corner and he’s like, ‘Vivian, I don’t know if you want to see this,’” Vivian recalled of the moment she lost. “I knew the last two words but the first one, I just couldn’t get the syllables. It was 10 seconds, so by the time I got to the eighth second, I missed it.”
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