Vanna White Admits She Thought About Quitting ‘Wheel of Fortune’
ABC
For more than 40 years, Pat Sajak and Vanna White have been the faces of Wheel of Fortune. However, in June, Sajak, 76, revealed that the current season would be his last. For a while, it looked like Vanna, 66, might follow suit and leave the show, especially after it was revealed that she was unhappy with her salary. But then a deal was struck, and she committed to continuing her role until the 2025-26 season alongside new host Ryan Seacrest.
Now, White has revealed to People magazine that she took a pause to contemplate her future with the show following Sajak’s departure announcement and did seriously consider stepping away for good.
“Of course, it’s a thought,” White says. “It’s like, ‘Well, wait, if you’re leaving, what am I going to do? How can I stay without you?’ It was a very hard decision for me to make, because it definitely crossed my mind. It’s like, ‘I just don’t know if I can do this without you,’ but I thought about it and I’m not ready to retire, so I am staying on.”
Nevertheless, White believes that there will be a noticeable change when Ryan Seacrest, who is 48, assumes the role previously held by Sajak.
“I know Ryan — he is professional, he’s good at what he does, he’s kind,” White says. “I think it’s going to be good. He’s such a nice guy, and he loves what he does. He said, ‘Look, I am not replacing Pat. I’m not going in to try to fill Pat’s shoes. No one can ever replace him.’ He says he’s coming in to do a good job and to keep the show going, and I’m looking forward to working with him.”
At the moment, White’s primary focus is on commemorating Sajak’s concluding season, a period she describes as bittersweet.
“We are celebrating this year with Pat and all the good times, all the 41 years, all the memories,” the South Carolina native says. “We are going to be doing some incredible stuff to say goodbye to Pat at the end of the season. We have almost a whole season to do that, to just look at all the great things that we’ve done together. I’m so looking forward to that. It’s going to be very sad.”
White also noted that she and Sajak “get along tremendously, so I am so going to miss him.”
“I mean, I know everything about him,” she continues. “He knows everything about me. I can tell when he’s walking up the stairs. Our dressing rooms are on the second floor. I can hear in his footsteps when he is walking up the steps, if he’s going to be in a good mood or not. Forty-one years together, you know each other so well. It definitely is bittersweet, but he’s decided to retire and I have to accept that.”
As she anticipates additional Wheel of Fortune episodes in her future, White regards her most significant achievement to date as ““being on TV for so long and hopefully giving people a good feeling.”
“There’s so much negative stuff out there,” she continued. “I feel like I just want to give people a good feeling and if everybody could be at peace, and be happy, and be kind to each other, that’s been the most proudest for me being on TV, to be able to try to spread that good feeling.”
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