Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel weren’t the only rivals feuding on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?. Ken Jennings, who teamed up with Damon to win the $1 million, called his Jeopardy! rival to tell him he was going to win $1 million.
Jennings and Damon used their 50/50 Lifeline and their Ask The Host Lifeline during their last two questions. Both of them helped the duo win the $1 million for Damon’s charity, Water.org, to Kimmel’s dismay. However, what was not shown was Jennings using their Phone a Friend Lifeline. It wasn’t used for help. It was used for bragging rights.
Ken Jennings revealed to Variety that he called Brad Rutter, who is ahead of Jennings on the Leaderboard of Legends by only $600,000 in All-Time Winnings Including Tournaments. Jennings beat Rutter for most consecutive games won and All-Time Winnings in Regular Season Play.
The duo copied John Carpenter, who in 1992, was the very first $1 million winner on the game show. He also called up his Phone a Friend to tell them he was going to win. “We got to do the, ‘Hey, Brad. We’re gonna win a million dollars!’ thing that John Carpenter made famous,” Jennings told the outlet. But the small segment was cut from the show.
“I can’t believe they cut this and not half the feud jokes,” a Reddit user said.
“Just read the news, and they did use Phone-a-Friend. Can you just give us the clip where they use the lifeline?” an Instagram user asked.
It might have been shocking to some Jeopardy! fans that Jennings didn’t pick another contestant from the game show to play with him, but he explained that Kimmel cornered him at a charity event and asked him to play with an A-list star, which turned out to be Matt Damon.
Their “rivalry” stems back to the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2004, which had the prize set at $2 million. The two faced off against Jerome Vered in a three-game challenge. Rutter wound up winning all three games and the huge jackpot. He also defeated Jennings two more times in the Battle of the Decades tournament in 2014 and 2019’s Jeopardy! All-Star Games.
However, Jennings finally got his revenge when he beat Rutter in the last ever Jeopardy! game that he played. They faced off against then-newcomer James Holzhauer 2020’s Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time prime time event. Jennings came out on top while Rutter came in third after not winning one game. After that, Alex Trebek died, and Jennings was made the permanent host, ending his time as a contestant. But Rutter and Jennings met again when Rutter competed in the 2025 Jeopardy! Masters, where they threw digs at each other throughout.
Damon and Kimmel’s “rivalry” began in 2005 when Kimmel began joking that he ran out of time to interview Damon on his talk show. The playful feud has continued for two decades.
Jeopardy!, Season 42, September 8, check local listings
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Wednesdays, 8/7c, ABC, next day on Hulu