this! is! exciting!

Jeopardy! Champion Amy Schneider Is Now a Millionaire

Photo: Casey Durkin/Sony Pictures Television

We’ll take Legends Only for $800, Ghost Alex. In the year’s best game-show news so far, reigning champion Amy Schneider has become the fourth Jeopardy! contestant to reach the millionaires’ club during regular-season game play. The engineering manager living in Oakland, California, achieved the feat on the January 7 episode. Schneider’s total winnings now rest at $1,019,001, with 28 victories. “It feels amazing, it feels strange,†Schneider said in a statement. “It’s not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name.†Only three other contestants in the show’s history have passed this million-dollar threshold: Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Matt Amodio. (Brad Rutter still remains No. 1 in all-time winnings, thanks to his extensive Jeopardy! tournament participation.) In addition to her clue and buzzer prowess, Schneider discussed the significance of being the show’s most successful transgender champion, telling The Daily Beast about her motivations in an interview. “I didn’t want to give the impression that it was a secret, and that it was something I wanted to conceal or that I was ashamed of, in any way, or anything like that,†she explained. “So, I didn’t want to be, you know, ‘the trans person,’ but I also didn’t want pretend like that wasn’t true or it didn’t matter.†We hope she splurges on more pearls!

Jeopardy! Champion Amy Schneider Is Now a Millionaire