SHOCK : Ken Jennings of Jeopardy! confronts player after he calls host 'enemy'

Jeopardy!’s Ken Jennings confronts player after he calls host his ‘nemesis’ in awkward moment before wild finish

KEN Jennings was left astonished when a Jeopardy! contestant called the host his “nemesis” on Monday’s wild episode.

Ongoing winner Troy Meyer then nabbed a crucial 3rd victory with a combined $97K.

New contestant Duncan revealed Ken Jennings’ name alone ‘elicited a lot of eyerolls from me’Credit: ABC

The host replied in surprise: ‘I was not notified!’Credit: ABC
The reigning champ faced Duncan Bowling, an ICU nurse manager from Washington, DC, and Anne Faircloth, a farmer from Clinton, North Carolina.

Ken, 48, turned to newcomer Duncan during the Q&A break: “I understand I am your nemesis, Duncan. And I was not notified.”

Duncan replied: “I hate to break it to you, but back in your original run on Jeopardy! I was a high school quiz bowl contestant.

“And whenever we would slack off, my coach would say ‘how do you think Ken Jennings got so far, it was not by slacking off!'”

“So your name elicited a lot of eyerolls from me.”

The straight-faced contestant assured: “But I’m glad we can put the past in the past.”

Ken laughed it up and nervously turned to the camera to address Duncan’s slightly sinister share.

“If your quiz bowl coach is watching, I slacked off a lot in high school, I’m so sorry!” Ken assured as the crowd went wild over the quashed resentment on the board.

“Thank you, thank you” the contestant responded.

“I DIED when Ken looked directly at the camera and admitted “I slacked off a TON in high school!” Thank you for inspiring the next generation,” one fan wrote on Twitter.

‘NEXT SUPER-CHAMP?’

Troy, a music executive from Tampa, Florida, then went into double-time and won his third of three “Runaways.”

In other words, by Final Jeopardy, he had such a big lead that as long as he didn’t bet the house, he’d already won.

While Duncan landed on the two remaining “Daily Doubles” Troy nabbed clue after clue and left him in the dust.

By Final Jeopardy, he had $32,000 to Duncan’s $13,600.

Poor Anne finished at $0 and did not compete.

Though she did score a laugh from Ken when she guessed that former athlete-turned-actor Bruce Dern refused to shave “his legs” on an earlier clue.

Final Jeopardy under “Astronomy and Geography” read: “At the winter solstice, the sun is in Sagittarius; it once appeared in this constellation, giving a geographic feature its name.”

Both players were correct with “Capricorn” and Troy played it safe with $3,000 to win with $35,000.

Ken admitted Troy had “the boosters on” by the last round and just couldn’t be caught.

The big win left Troy one W away from a Tournament of Champions invite – he held his chest and looked so grateful.

Fans are pretty excited online as three runaways are a good sign and one wrote to Reddit:

“Troy really appears to be super grateful to be on the show and is soaking in every moment. Doesn’t appear to take his trivia superstardom for granted, and it’s quite refreshing to see.

“I think he’s going to be the next super champ,” wrote another.

“Troy is very good” a third Twitter user simply put it.

So far, only four contestants have won big enough to qualify for next year’s Tournament of Champions.

Those would be fan-favorite Ray Lalonde with 13 wins, former poker ace Cris Pannullo with 21 wins, five-day champ Luigi de Guzman, and four-day champ and priest David Sibley.

MORE ABOUT TROY

Ken also revealed on stage that Troy’s emotional first win saw him looking up above near tears for the sweetest reason.

Troy’s mother recently passed away and they “shared a big love” of watching Jeopardy! together.

As Troy also briefly touched on tonight, his wife Genevieve was a contestant in 2009 and they anonymously met online when she was practicing to compete.

Troy told the New York Times in their 2010 wedding announcement: “I talked to friends, and they thought I was absolutely nuts.”

They kept in touch as she prepped, but Troy didn’t know what she looked like until her episode aired.

Troy told the New York Times that before then: “I thought she was 55 years old.”

They finally met up in person after she competed: “Within the first 24 hours we just wanted to be together,” Genevieve told the New York Times. They now share a son, 10.

Troy – whom some fans have said looks like Bill Hader – is one of the top U.S. players in the niche, online invite-only Learned League, a trivia club that has 25,000-plus members, and Jeopardy!-like questions.

It’s no easy feat to “win the scarf,” the prize given to the secret league’s champ, four times.

Many Jeopardy! champs are, or secretly were, members including host Ken, per The New Yorker – he had to step down for obvious reasons.

Meanwhile, Troy also doesn’t have any social media accounts – which is another sign he could be our next big winner since champs are advised to keep a low profile, or profiles.

WHERE IS: MAYIM?

Co-host Mayim Bialik, 47, is expected to return to the game show in late February.

With her Call Me Kat schedule running longer than expected, Mayim will be commencing her hosting duties with a new teen tournament.

Fans will be getting more of Ken as he will be hosting the new Jeopardy! Masters spinoff, which is scheduled to air during the spring in primetime.

The six-champ special has invited Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Sam Buttrey, Andrew He, Mattea Roach, and James Holzhauer to participate as contestants.

The 20-game, 10-episode special will see all of the players face each other in a round-robin with no one eliminated.