Wheel of Fortune player misspells ‘Achilles’ and loses $1 million despite solving the puzzle
While contestants fail to solve the tricky puzzles on "Wheel of Fortune", there is those who fail to win despite getting everything right. Indiana University freshman Julian Batts was on a roll before hitting a series of roadblocks. With fiery guesses, he won a shot at the $1 million prize and guessed all the letters in the puzzle. However, when it came to saying the answer out loud, he shockingly fumbled the pronunciation and lost it all.
He found his Achilles heel
In an episode from 2014, during the show's College Week, Batts guessed a string of letters to solve a puzzle completely. The puzzle read "Mythological Hero Achilles" after Batts solved it.
He had gathered $1,000 along with a shot at the $1 million prize. However, the show's rules say that the contestant has to say the answer out loud correctly to win the prize. This was when Batts failed as he pronounced Achilles as "A-Chill-Is".
Veteran host Pat Sajak was shocked to hear the answer as it passed on to the next contestant who got it right. Sajak did his best to save Batts from embarrassment as he said "We're going to wipe this clean from our memory banks".
But that wasn't the contestant's only failure. In the next puzzle, Batts was again on a roll as he guessed nearly all the letters, and got a shot at winning a car.
However, when it came to solving it, he guessed one of the last two letters wrong and once again handed the chance to the next contestant. The woman got it right again, as she guessed "The World's Fastest Man" as the answer.
Batts took another loss when he attempted to solve the puzzle that read "_N TH_ SP_T D_C_S_ _N". His guess "ON THE SPOT DICESPIN" was quite off. The next contestant yet again took advantage by guessing the right answer "ON THE SPOT DECESION".
Despite his fumbles, Batts ended up winning the show as he had collected $11,700. "I don't think anyone's ever taken a more circuitous route to victory, but the important thing is you're here!" Sajak joked at the end.
Viewers were gobsmacked to witness the freshman's losses. "Speaking of the letter L he took a bunch of L's right there," wrote @Jordan23LBrn.
In an interview with "Good Morning America," Batts explained that it hit him like a train when he realized his mistake. He said that it didn't feel like a mistake at the time. "All I had to do was read it and I just went for it and I did my best," he added.
Nevertheless, Batts said it was a dream come true for him to appear and win at the show. "It was one of the greatest experiences I've accomplished so far," he shared.
Batts isn't the only "Wheel Of Fortune" contestant who lost big money over mispronunciation. Before him, another contestant, Paul Atkinson, also landed on the million-dollar wedge, but lost by mispronouncing the word "Curio".
Since he had never heard the word before, Atkinson said it like "Curro" and his answer was not accepted. Atkinson told ABC News that he got flustered, calling the incident a "nightmare".
