Pat Sajak has apparently hosted Wheel of Fortune while drunk. Hey, you’d have to hit the bottle to feign enthusiasm for buying vowels over the course of decades.
The host of the long-running game show says that many times, especially back in the day, he and Vanna White occasionally had a drink – or six – on the show.
When asked by Dan Le Batard of Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable, which airs on ESPN 2, if he ever hosted the show while intoxicated, Sajak came clean:
“Yes,” the TV veteran, 65, admitted with a laugh. “When I first started and was much younger and could tolerate those things. We had a different show then.”
With a 2.5-hour dinner break during the show’s early format, Sajak and White would drop by Los Arcos, a Mexican joint in Burbank, Calif., for margaritas.
“Vanna and I would … have 2-3 or six and then come and do the last shows and have trouble recognizing the alphabet,” he says. “I had a great time.”
“I have no idea if the shows were good, but no one said anything.”
All good then. While he insists he no longer imbibes at work, Sajak says the old shows are fun to watch. “They’re really great tapes to get a hold of,” he says.
One can only imagine.