‘Jeopardy!’ champ Amy Schneider first woman to win $1M in prize money: ‘It feels amazing’
Reigning “Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider has achieved yet another milestone during her historic run on the trivia game show.
Friday’s episode saw Schneider, 42, score her 28th consecutive win and earn $42,000, bringing her total winnings to to $1,019,001 – making her the fourth “Jeopardy!” contestant and first woman to win over $1 million in regular season play.
Schneider is currently the fourth-highest-earning winner in regular season play, behind legends Matt Amodio ($1,518,601), James Holzhauer ($2,462,216) and Ken Jennings ($2,520,700)
“It feels amazing, it feels strange,” Schneider said. “It’s not a sum of money I ever anticipated would be associated with my name.”
Though this week ended on a high note for Schneider, it got off to a rocky start. The contestant revealed on Twitter Monday that she was feeling “fine” after getting robbed of her ID, credit cards and phone on Sunday.
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“I then couldn’t really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything,” she added.
Oakland police said in a statement they were still investigating the armed robbery that occurred Sunday afternoon and had not yet made any arrests.
The game show issued a statement saying, “We were deeply saddened to hear about this incident, and we reached out to Amy privately to offer our help in any capacity.”
The engineering manager from Oakland, California, became the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for a spot in the next tournament of top winners after just five wins earlier this year. She’s since opened up about the value of on-screen representation.
“I am so incredibly grateful,” she said in a recent interview with San Francisco station KGO-TV. “Hopefully I can send a positive message to the nerdy trans girl who wants to be on the show too.”
GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Representation Nick Adams celebrated Schneider passing the $1 million mark on the show in a statement Friday.
“Amy Schneider’s incredible run on Jeopardy! allows families all over the country to get to know her as someone who is great at word puzzles, has in-depth knowledge on a range of topics, and who also happens to be a transgender woman,” Adams said. “Amy is using her history-making appearances and new platform to raise awareness of transgender issues and share a bit of her personal story too.”
Of the “Jeopardy!” contestant greats, Schneider said she’d like to beat Holzhauer, who won 32 games in a row in 2019, nabbed a total of $2,962,216 in prize money and holds the show record for single-game winnings with $131,127.
Schneider addressed transphobic comments she’s received since appearing on “Jeopardy!” in a tweet on New Year’s Eve.
“I’d like to thank all the people who have taken the time, during this busy holiday season, to reach out and explain to me that, actually, I’m a man,” she wrote. “Every single one of you is the first person ever to make that very clever point, which had never once before crossed my mind”
Contributing: David Oliver and Hannah Yasharoff, USA TODAY; and the Associated Press
