Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak told a guest on the show the personal story the competitor had just shared with viewers was the “most pointless story ever told.”
Sajak's snarkiness on the show is not a revelation, but it was a jarring pivot from his display of empathy towards the previous week's contestants who were ridiculed by trolls for failing to solve what audiences thought was an easy puzzle.
Sajak ended his series of posts by telling fans to "have a little heart."
However, he failed to heed his own advice when interacting with contestant Scott Ingwersen on Wednesday's show.
While glancing at the contestant's bio, Sajak was confused about a talking point on the card.
He asked Ingwersen:
"Why am I mentioning this? It’s on your card. You had your big toe chopped off. Why are you telling this?”
Ingwersen explained the significance of his misfortune.
“It’s important to know that when I was 12 years old, I was riding a 10-speed bike with flip-flops, and I fell and completely cut off the top of my toe."
"The next car that came by were two paramedics that were on their way to their job, and they said, ‘It’s just a laceration.’ But I didn’t know what that was, so it freaked me out even more."
"And my toe is reattached, and I just want to say thank you to them 30 years later.”
There was hesitant laughter and some sympathetic applause from the audience following his story, but Sajak was unimpressed and made no attempts to hide what he really thought.
“That may have been the most pointless story ever told. And you told it, Scott,” he told Ingerwersen. “Congratulations to you.”
Some Twitter users didn't take kindly to Sajak's insensitivity, and they called out his hypocrisy after urging viewers to be kinder to contestants.
Some fans, however, defended Sajak and suggested viewers of the show lighten up.
Wheel of Fortune airs weeknights on ABC at 7:30 Eastern Time and 6:30 Central Time.
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