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Some Wheel of Fortune fans are calling for longtime host Pat Sajak’s resignation after he seemingly mocked a contestant’s speech impediment during Monday’s episode. The player, Chris Brimble, introduced himself as a tech salesman, revealing his noticeable lisp. And instead of replying to him with, “I see,” Sajak said, “I thee.”
In the moment, Sajak may’ve thought it was a harmless joke and Brimble himself just laughed it off. (Really, what else could he have done?) But it’s clear now that the comment—intentional or not—wasn’t in good taste. Viewers took to Twitter to express their outrage and disappointment in the interaction.
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“Cheap shot making fun of a contestant with a lisp. I teach speech therapy. You have been on the air for far too long. It’s time for you to retire,” one person wrote on Twitter. “Hopefully you learned by your mistake and stop making fun of those with a lisp. As a woman who has lived all her life with one (and my parents put me in speech classes when I was first going to school as a youngster), I find it appalling that you do that kind of crap,” another wrote.
“As someone your age, who grew up with hearing impaired cousins, I was taught that we NEVER made fun of their speech pattern,” another added. “To this day I wouldn’t even think of doing what you did … Own it and DO BETTER!”
Plenty have called for a public apology from Sajak, but at the time of publication, neither him nor Wheel of Fortune have spoken up. The timing of it all is kind of ironic, too, considering Sajak’s latest tweets got philosophical about kindness and mistakes. On Feb. 16, he tweeted, “Criticizing others is so much easier than examining our own lives…and so much less productive.” And the following day, he wrote, “How nice for those who have lived such exemplary lives that they can express glee when others have their lives ruined by a mistake, real or perceived.”
This isn’t the first time the host has found himself under fire for his questionable sarcasm. In December of last year, fans were shocked to hear him snap and call a contestant “ungrateful.” But he at least apologized then.
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