Ken Jennings Faces Backlash After Insensitive Old Tweet Resurfaces
Although Jeopardy has not announced an official new host, they have announced that there will be several interim hosts, and the first host will be Greatest of All Time winner Ken Jennings.
You can’t be in the spotlight without having old social media posts you regret dredged up, and that’s true for Jennings. Although he has proven himself to be a very smart man, once upon a time he did write a tweet that was in very poor taste.
Back in 2014, Jennings wrote, “Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair.”
In 2018, when he was criticized for not apologizing for the comment, he wrote, “I never did a public flogging thing for this but I did apologize personally to angry/hurt people who reached out personally. It was a joke so inept that it meant something very different in my head & I regret the ableist plain reading of it!”
We’re not sure what exactly this original tweet meant in Jennings’ head, but at least he has realized that the tweet was a bad idea. Watch the video below for more details.
Although the video above says that the tweet wasn’t deleted, it seems that it was deleted in the past few days. You can’t really delete tweets though. There are screenshots. There are memories. Social media and the internet will always find a way.
While some people are clearly upset about Jennings’ tweet, others think it’s time to move on. The tweet was 6 years ago and was meant to be a joke. One viewer commented, “People are way too sensitive these days. That was a very mild post from 6 years ago…”
Another comment reads, “Nothing sadder than people who dwell on the past. Get a life and move forward.”
However, many people are not willing to simply choose to forget Jennings’ tweet.
Nothing sadder than an unapologetic ableist hosting Jeopardy! pic.twitter.com/zNyrQTjIj4
— Christmas Halftime (@cheesepickles) November 23, 2020
After reading his incredibly offencive post? I’m not pulling for him. In fact I wasn’t before. There’s something creepy about him.
— Rocka (@LaLaRocka) November 24, 2020
Were you offended by Jennings’ tweet? Do you think he would made a good host for Jeopardy?