Jeopardy! champion Jake DeArruda ended his time on the show after winning three games. Though he walked away with nearly $70,000 to his name, he also left the game with a slightly embarrassing statistic. The champ never correctly guessed any of the Final Jeopardy clues, which ultimately proved to be his undoing.
DeArruda, a delivery dispatcher originally from Ludlow, Vermont, won $22,797 on his first day even though he answered the Final Jeopardy clue incorrectly. The category was “World Cinema,” and the clue read, “The 2007 biopic called La Môme in France, meaning ‘The Kid’, was released in the U.S. under this other French title.” Although La Vie en rose was the correct answer, DeArruda and the other two players responded incorrectly.
The next day, DeArruda won again without answering the final clue correctly. The category was “Word Origins” and again, the returning champ and two other contestants were wrong. The final clue said, “Originally relating to a story of suffering, this word now more commonly refers to strong emotion of any kind.” The correct response was passion, as opposed to DeArruda’s mortal, but he still added another $25,197 to his winnings.