Alex Trebek announced Wednesday afternoon that he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Though the prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually dire, Trebek said in a recorded video message that he does not plan to retire from the show at the moment and that “with the love and support of my family and friends, and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.†Trebek has hosted Jeopardy! since its current iteration began in 1984, and in closing, he joked he has to keep working even with his diagnosis because “under the terms of my contract, I have to host Jeopardy! for three years.†“So help me,†he concluded, “keep the faith, and we’ll win. We’ll get it done.â€
Last July, Trebek, who is 78, made waves by suggesting that he might retire from the game-show series once his contract was up in 2020, but later it was announced he had renewed it for the 2020–21 season. In a longer conversation with Vulture, Trebek said, “When it’s clear that it’s time for me to go, I’ll go,†he said. “I look at the show and think, I’m pretty good. So either our director is saving my ass through judicious editing or I’m not as bad as I sometimes think I am.†He added: “All I want on my last show is 30 seconds, and I’ll do what Johnny Carson did: ‘Hey, folks, thank you. Been a good run and all good things must come to an end.’ Then I’ll move on.â€