For a writer/blogger, I am bad at most word games. Scrabble leaves me cold. Words With Friends can eat it. Crosswords are the worst! My mind just doesn’t work that way. So occasionally, I do watch Wheel of Fortune, one of the dumbest shows out there but one which has survived because of dummies like me (honestly, I prefer Jeopardy because rando trivia is totally my jam and that’s definitely the way my mind works). Whenever I do watch Wheel of Fortune, I’m amazed that Vanna White still gets paid a huge amount of money to walk back and forth across a stage, lightly tapping letters which light up. It’s a great gig for her and she’s clung to it for 37 years. Vanna’s success is partly due to the fact that she never looked a gift horse in the mouth – she knew it was a sweet gig and she never really looked to move beyond it. With Pat Sajak out of WoF for a medical emergency, Vanna has been filling in as host of WoF. So People Magazine decided to do a nice little profile of her. She honestly sounds like a lovely person.
Wheel of Fortune‘s Vanna White has been a co-host of the show for 37 seasons (and counting!), but in a few weeks, she’ll take on the role of main host, filling in for Pat Sajak, who had to undergo emergency surgery for a blocked intestine. It’s safe to say that White, 62, has prayed for her colleague’s speedy recovery. “I grew up religious,” she recently told PEOPLE during a sit-down at her Beverly Hills home. “I was baptized a Baptist, and I’ve always had my own personal relationship with God.”
The South Carolina-born beauty queen, who landed the Wheel of Fortune gig when she was just 25 after moving to L.A. to continue her modeling career, said she grew up going to church and Sunday school each week. And while she identifies as a Christian, she never likes to preach about it.
“I don’t preach, because everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs,” she shared. “I don’t judge anyone for whatever religion they are. This is my religion and I speak openly about it, but again, I would never preach.” Still, she firmly believes in the power of prayer. “I pray every day,” she said.
White said prayer, plus the support she’s received from Wheel fans, has helped her through darker times, like when she lost her fiancé in a plane crash in 1986. “I heard from so many people who had shared the same experience of losing someone instantly in an accident, and that really helped me,” she told PEOPLE. “I didn’t feel like I was alone. Because when something like that happens, you immediately think you’re the only one.”
She also turned to her faith and her fans when she miscarried her first child just a week after announcing it via a puzzle on the set of the show. “Obviously I lost the baby, which was devastating after announcing it. The good news is I was able to get pregnant again and had two beautiful, healthy children. … But losing a child — there’s nothing good about that,” she told PEOPLE.
While White will only be hosting the show briefly as Sajak recovers before returning to her regular role as letter-turner, she said she has no intention of leaving her beloved job anytime soon. “We’re one big family,” she said of the Wheel of Fortune cast and crew. “It’s wonderful.”
[From People]
“I don’t preach, because everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs.” Refreshing. She’s basically a small-town Southern Baptist who has lived in LA for long enough to know that she should keep her nose out of other people’s business. And truly, she’s getting paid millions of dollars to saunter around on stage and that’s it! Bless her. She’s absolutely harmless.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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