Wheel of Fortune Temporarily Replaces Vanna White Amid Tense Contract Negotiations
For the first time in more than three decades, Vanna White will be temporarily M.I.A. at Wheel of Fortune.
The iconic letter turner reportedly contracted COVID in late July while Wheel was filming its annual “Teachers Week” block, slated to air in October. In her absence, Puck News reports that producers tapped California-based “Teacher of the Year” recipient Bridgette Donald-Blue (pictured here) to stand at the letter board for the week’s worth of episodes. (Season 41 premieres Monday, Sept. 11.)
This may seem like a natural fix on the surface, but the switch comes during tense contract negotiations for White, who is seeking her first salary bump in 18 years. Puck News’ Matthew Belloni suggests that this could either be seen as a “smart producing move, or a veiled message sent to White’s aggressive lawyers: Go ahead, push us harder.” [UPDATE: New details about the switcheroo emerge.]
TVLine has reached out to a Sony rep for comment.
White has only been absent from the show on three previous occasions: predecessor Susan Stafford returned while White grieved boyfriend John Gibson following his 1986 plane crash; Tricia Gist filled in during White’s two-week honeymoon with George San Pietro in 1991; and Gist came back for another week that same year when White came down with a cold.
Pat Sajak’s daughter Maggie has twice filled in for White at the letter board — first in 2019 while her father recovered from surgery, and again in 2023 for ABC’s primetime Celebrity edition of Wheel — but White was still a major part of the broadcast in both of those instances, hosting in 2019 and competing in 2023.
As previously reported, Sajak is stepping down from his longtime position as Wheel host at the end of Season 41. Episodes featuring Ryan Seacrest as the new host will begin airing in September 2024.
I wanted Vanna to take over from Pat.
This wouldn’t be happening if you just made her the host.
Why didn’t they just make Vanna host? Ryan Seacrest is completely over saturated in tv and gets paid far too much for being so fake on screen, there’s nothing very authentic about Ryan. Vanna is far more layered and interesting to me.
Pat Sajak’s parting gift to Vanna: pushing to have his daughter replace her?
She should just retire when he does and call it a day. The show sounds like it’s turning into your typical negative and uncaring production that’s underpaid someone for decades and can’t finally step up and do the right thing.
The fact that she’s not had a raise in EIGHTEEN years is unconsciounable. I know she always had the power to walk away (as she does now), but she shouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
I can’t verify this, but it’s reported that she’s paid $3 mill/year, while Pat is paid $15 mill/year. That level of disparity should be criminal, IMO.
This article says “Matthew Belloni suggests that this could either be seen as a “smart producing move, or a veiled message sent to White’s aggressive lawyers: Go ahead, push us harder.””
If I were Vanna, I’d push back twice as hard. Even if they decided to let me go, I’d see it as a win. Life’s too short (and especially at 66 years of age) to be treated this way–especially by an employer.
She got a pay bump for Celebrity Wheel of Fortune but not for the regular show.
Technically, the Equal Pay Act makes it illegal. The caveats there are that Pat and Vanna would have to do the exact same type of work (they don’t) and Vanna would have to prove that she’s being discriminated against on the basis of her sex (she can’t). So the disparity remains.
So how much should one be paid to turn letters. Three million dollars? Millions of people would take the job for that or even less. Get real Vans. You have the most cushy job on the planet.
FIRST SALARY BUMP IN 18 YEARS. These people are shameless.
Why even bother with a “letter turner”? Those spaces light up and can surely turn by the producer sitting behind the thing by just pressing a key. The company might save a million.
Cutting such an iconic role would be devastating to the shows viewership and ratings.
Proved that when they had Mini Mouse fill in for a week & all she did was doing around & do that model revealing a product had move without ever leaving the one side of the board.
Huh?
I think she turns the letters just fine! Somebody got to do it! Why are you hating on Vanna? Can’t you support her?
Well, if they won’t raise Vanna’s pay after all these years, then after all my years of watching, I call it quits.
That’s a lot of misinformation – Vanna gets a salary bump every contract negotiation. It wasn’t as large a salary as Pat’s, but it’s definitely not been 18 years since she got one. Maybe you meant solo negotiation, or a massive star-turn amount, like Pat’s?
I’m surprised that over the years Sajak didn’t fight for better salary for Vanna.
Ahhhh, I’m not. Sometimes the heroes you see on TV…are no heroes at all.
It’s not his place.
Why would he? Because it’s the right thing to do? Every year her salary remained frozen was a bigger potential bump for him. Besides, I doubt they discuss details of their salary with one another.
Vanna White hasn’t had a raise in 18 years as I read it so give her a raise or promote her to host to take Pat’s spot.
Vanna White outlasted every international adaptations of WoF. She deserves her paycheck raise.
Every entertainment news including TVLine were flooded with negative comments when they announced Ryan Seacrest as the host successor, and the producers did not back down since. When new big shot host arrives Sept 2024, he’ll be paid way more then Sajak – and I guess 10 times more than Vanna White and her 40 years experience. If producers can afford $eacrest…
Wheel, like Jeopardy, are produced in the same house. Considering the upheaval Jeopardy is having just getting people to cross picket lines to produce the show, this issue with Vanna will create bad feeling with Wheel Watchers.
Way to go guys! You have figured out how to annoy, anger, upset the very people you need (viewers) to pay the bills and keep you on the air.
FYI: It is NEVER a good idea to give people a reason not to watch.
That’s ok – I will just stop watching wheel of fortune too ! They don’t care what their consumers want to watch anymore.
They fired two host because they had an affair, who cares?? There is so much worse things going on.
They want her out and they are going to make that happen, and use some other thing as an excuse. Seacrest will want his own co-host assuming they even have someone in that role under his auspices.
I had a meeting with/68 women yesterday about women’s issues & someone brought Vanna & the fact that she hadn’t had a raise in 18 yrs. To be concise & to the point, if you don’t start treating Vanna right about the salary issue or try to get rid of her because she finally asks for what is fair; not one of those women wants to ever watch WofF again. Just because she didn’t ask for a raise doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have done the right thing & given her one.
With Sajak leaving, I would imagine much of the audience will go with him. The only reason I think most of the older audience might stay is because of Vanna. Without Vanna and Pat, they might as well cancel the game show.
It is hard to believe that Vanna hasn’t had a raise in 18 years. That doesn’t make the show look good at all.
I don’t think that will happen. The Price is Right is still going strong after Bob Barker retired and it got a new host, new announcer and new models. And Jeopardy! still has a large following after Alex Trebek’s death. Most people watch the show for the show itself.
Vanna White deserves the raise she is asking for
This wouldn’t be happening if you just made her the host.
It should go without saying that it will be the end of an era when Pat steps down. At the same time, it would also be weird for Vanna to stay over into the “New Administration”, so to speak. Let’s be honest here: Pat and Vanna are a package deal and, over time, neither really works without the other. Should she have made more money? Sure, she should have. But her role has been obsolete for over 25 years (seriously, they introduced the non-turning letters around 1997!). If they do keep her for any reason, she should be negotiating for some bigger, made up title, like Chairman of the Wheel or something that keeps her onscreen, but also gives her a little more to do.
She should retire and make way for a younger person. Mid sixties is too old to draw in younger viewers.
Wow
These days even highly skilled workers are worried about losing their jobs to AI and I’m supposed to feel bad for someone whose job could have been automated about 30 years ago? She’s literally made millions of dollars a year smiling and pointlessly touching a screen. The rest of us should only be so lucky.
First ask for a raise in 18 years! Come on, NBC, don’t be the villain here. And, by the way, #SaveMagnumPI.
NBC doesn’t own or air WoF. Get your facts straight if you want to shame a TV entity for their monetary injustice to Vanna.
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And before that first raise they paid her by letting her do the shopping round and put whatever was left on a gift certificate.
Sounds like another ‘Bud Lite’ mistake to me. I can understand in the cutthroat media business replacing Vanna during the contract squabble (which should never have been an issue. No raise in 18 years? C’mon now …. she was worth raises just STAYING that long. But, to play politics with the choice. First fatally over-rated and fake Ryan Seacrest and now this? Kiss it goodbye, baby. This will be ‘the last spin.’
Good points. But I don’t see how the Bud Lite thing relates to this, other than it possibly being something on your mind – ?
The show needs some changes. This is good. Sea
Crest will be great. I’ll start to watch again.