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Updated: March 12, 2025 @ 10:06 am
Ryan Seacrest surprised viewers when he poked fun at himself and his relationship history on Tuesday’s (March 11) episode of Wheel of Fortune, where he revealed his “biggest fear.”
During the introductions, a contestant named Jill McDaniel from Lakewood, Colorado explained how she holds “discussion dinners” with friends, including potluck and no alcohol. When Seacrest asked what kind of questions she asks, McDaniel said one example is, “What’s your biggest fear?”
“Vanna, what is your biggest fear?” Seacrest asked, turning to his co-host Vanna White.
“Oh, my biggest fear? Erm… spiders? Spiders is a big one,” she replied. “How about you?”
The American Idol host then turned straight to the camera and admitted, “Relationships.”
This then sparked a big reaction from McDaniel, who leaned over and gave Seacrest a fist bump, to which he quipped, “We are each other’s people.”
Seacrest, who turned 50 back in December, has never married, though he once said he “loves the idea” of marriage.
“I love the idea [of getting married],” he told his former co-host Kelly Ripa in a 2017 episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan. “I know you’re going to ask me of marriage because my parents have been married for 47 years, and so I have this thing… I figure the longer I wait, the older I’ll be, the closer to death I am, so I can get it in and not screw it up.”
Seacrest was most recently in a relationship with Aubrey Paige Petcosky, though the couple split in April 2024 after three years together. Before that, he dated model Shayna Taylor from 2017 to 2020, and Dancing With The Stars host Julianne Hough from 2010 to 2013. He also dated model Sara Jean Underwood in a two-year on-and-off relationship.
As for McDaniel, she had a successful night on Wheel as she beat Ryan Ballester, a Navy pilot from Pensacola, Florida, and Carolyn Owens, a music sync licensing worker from Northridge, California, to advance to the Bonus Round.
McDaniel selected the dreaded “Phrase” category, along with the additional letters “M, C, D, and A,” giving her a three-word puzzle that read, “A / _ A _ _ _ / M E D _ _ M.”
It didn’t take her long to shout out the correct answer, “A Happy Medium,” after which Seacrest opened the prize envelope to reveal she’d added an extra $40,000 to her winnings. McDaniel ended up leaving the show with a grand total of $63,749, plus a trip to the Canadian Rockies.
At the end of the episode, White opened up about her fear of spiders, saying it started when she was in the second grade. Seacrest then scared her with a decoy spider.
What did you think of Tuesday’s episode? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Originally published on tvinsider.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
Partly to mostly cloudy; cooler than the previous few days.
Mostly cloudy skies.
Mostly cloudy skies; remaining dry.
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