Brent Miller, from Pocahontas, Arkansas, won $120,704 on Wheel of Fortune after nearly giving fans heart attacks. His dramatic episode reaired on July 21, but first premiered on Monday, October 28. Miller spoke out about his win to his local news station.
“The fact that I won, especially that amount of money, I’m very much still just kind of processing that. I guess all the adrenaline will settle in later and I’ll figure out what to do with it,” he told K8 News. With his winnings, he plans on paying off his student loans as well as other things he hadn’t decided on at the time. Miller also planned to take his sister on the trip to St. Lucia that he won because they “never get to travel by themselves.”
The Wheel of Fortune contestant grew up watching the game show with his grandparents. “For me, it was something I really grew up with. I really lucky to know both sets of my grandparents, and so whenever I would stay with them as a child, you always watched KAIT, and then Wheel of Fortune at 6:30. That’s something I’ve always done. It’s always been a part of my life, and it was something I factored into it,” he told the outlet.
Because he watched the show religiously, he knew that at the end of every episode, there was a message about how to apply for it. Miller got further into the process and was eventually selected for the show.
“People have asked me like, ‘What do I need to do to get on the show,’ and I’m like, ‘I really don’t know,’ because I was just myself because I knew, I gotta be me,” Miller told the outlet. “I can’t play a character or anything like that on Wheel of Fortune, so I just introduced myself, propped my phone up against the laptop, and told them where I was from and why I loved Wheel of Fortune.”
The BBQ judge played against Brittany Perro, from San Diego, California, and Zsaneika Bass, from Chicago, Illinois. During the Bonus Round, things got dramatic when Miller took forever to solve what fans thought was an easy puzzle.
Fittingly selecting “Food and Drink,” he joined host Ryan Seacrest center stage, and chose the additional letters of “G, C, P, O.” The three-word puzzle read, “_OT _ _ _ GE TOPP_NG” and Seacrest remarked at his odds, “Not bad!”
However, while the answer came to many viewers right away, it did not come to Miller. When the 10-second timer began, he looked perplexed and guessed, “Um, ‘Hot Large Topping?”. It was abundantly clear he did not initially know the answer to the within-reach puzzle, causing one of the down-to-the-wire solves in memory.
“Hot Fudge Topping” came to him with four seconds left on the clock. The envelope showed $100,000, and an explosion of confetti burst around the studio. Miller hugged his parents and Vanna White as Seacrest exclaimed, “You did it!”
“What a great way to start off this week, and it literally gave me a heart attack!” a fan on YouTube said.
“I was worried for a moment,” said another.
“I was scared to DEATH he wasn’t gonna get it, but REAL happy he did!” wrote a third.
Wheel of Fortune, Season 43, airing this fall, check local listings