A Wheel of Fortune contestant who won $78,000 and a luxury car on the game show is revealing his plans for the winnings.
Jason Nieradka, from Kernersville, North Carolina, picked up host Ryan Seacrest and spun him around after he won $78,000 on May 14. He then returned the following night with the other four winners of the week. They all had the chance to win the Chevy Corvette Stingray, which was chosen by Jay Leno.
The bartender stood with the other winners on stage, and they all grabbed an envelope. Only one had the car in it, while the others said “Wheel of Fortune.” Nieradka’s envelope just so happened to have the car. Between his winnings on Thursday and the car, the contestant took home $156,060 in cash and prizes. To add to his prizes from the show? He got to keep the winning envelope, which Leno, Ryan Seacrest, and Vanna White all signed.
The winner shared what he plans to do with his cash and also his experience on the game show. “I will be taking a vacation at some point, going to enjoy some of the winnings, but I enjoy what I do for work, so it wasn’t a pain for me to come back and get behind the bar again at all,” Nieradka told WFMY News.
The winner said that it wasn’t easy to keep the secret since the episode was filmed in April. “It’s not easy to hide a lot of emotions and things, especially when things like this happen, but I did a good job keeping things under wraps for as long as I did. I’m really happy with how things played out,” he said.
Nieradka also said he expected Wheel of Fortune to be well-managed, but the experience exceeded his expectations. “t I didn’t expect it to be so crisp and clean,” the winner said. “We’ve got 15 people in there in the studio who’ve never been there, never seen it, and never navigated it, and the way they push and pull you, it’s really easy.”
Friends from years ago, as well as people he has never met who watch the show, have reached out to him to congratulate him on his win. “It was really cool to know that good things happen to good people, and I’m very, very fortunate,” Nieradka told the outlet.
Wheel of Fortune, weekdays, check local listings, stream next day on Hulu and Peacock
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