'Price is Right' contestant in wheelchair wins treadmill and her reaction became an iconic TV moment

As a popular game show, "The Price is Right" is seen as a way for people to make their dreams come true or walk home with quick cash. But it's not necessary that winnings on the show will always make the contestants happy. For instance, winning a sauna and a treadmill didn't make Danielle Perez happy, since the participant on the show was wheelchairbound. After Drew Carey, the host asked George, the show's announcer to reveal the prizes, George appeared to rush through the part when he unveiled the treadmill and focused more on the sauna, as heard in the video. Later many took to social media and pointed out just how awkward the scene was. "This poor woman in a wheelchair just won a treadmill on Price is Right," a user @chadneidt wrote on X (formerly Twitter). 

Another person on Twitter wrote, "For the first time ever I saw a woman in a wheelchair make it on The Price is Right. Her prize was a treadmill. God is very very cruel." Someone who was Danielle's friend took to the site and wrote, "My BFF @DivaDelux won a treadmill on The Price is Right, she’s in a wheelchair. Lol…At least we know now that nothing is fixed." However, the best reaction came from the contestant herself who later posted a photo of herself and captioned it, "When you win a treadmill on national TV, but you have no feet."

Danielle Perez who is a comedian has been in a wheelchair since 2004 after she lost her legs in an accident. “I kept thinking that it was a really big joke," she said with a laugh, “But there was no irony in their cheers or applause," she told CNN after winning. Despite a collective and awkward silence among the audience, which according to her was later edited out of the show, Danielle said, "Everyone at CBS seemed genuinely excited for me that I won."

According to Danielle, Carey had offered to help her spin the wheel when it was her turn, but she wanted to do it herself and succeeded the first time at getting the wheel to make a full rotation landing on $75. She made it to the showcase showdown and said that being on the show and even winning the treadmill was really fun. "I mean, what would I do with a party boat, anyway?" she added.

This wasn't the first time that things on "The Price is Right" didn't go as planned. Sometimes errors by hosts and the models have either robbed people of their winnings or accidentally even rewarded them. In another story, a model on "The Price Is Right" once inadvertent helped a contestant Andrea, who had three chances to guess the price of a brand-new Hyundai Sonata.

In the episode, model Manuela Arbelaez didn't give her a chance to guess again because she accidentally revealed the car's correct price. Later Manuela took to Twitter and wrote, "I don't usually give expensive gifts, but when I do is a $21,960 CAR."