Wheel of Fortune… or Divorce?

The TV game show Wheel of Fortune has been around since 1975, with thousands of episodes airing in syndication over its more than 50-year run. There are plenty of bloopers that have hit the airwaves during that period, and the above — from 2019 — is toward the top of the list. Host Pat Sajak, as he typically does, asked the contestants a bit about themselves and their families. Blair Davis of Cardiff, California took the opportunity to tell Sajak that he’s been “trapped in a loveless marriage for the last 12 years to an old battle-axe named Kim” who “cursed his life” with stepchildren and a “rotten” grandson.

Blair, as Sajak quickly pointed out, was joking. Most married men, when given the opportunity to speak about their spouses on Wheel of Fortune, do not choose to press their luck in this way. Rather, they avoid jeopardy by saying something nice about their wives — calling them lovely, wonderful, beautiful, etc.

And those who don’t? Well, according to one super fan, they’re likely on their way to divorce.

In the spring of 2026, a TikToker who goes by the handle of Joey Toks posted a video sharing the results of a study he claimed took him six years to make. Per the video, Joey reviewed all the episodes of Wheel of Fortune from 2010-2019 — presumably, including the one above — counting the number of male contestants and filtering for those who mentioned their wives. He found 2,855 male contestants across 1,950 episodes; of those 2,855, 2,016 mentioned their wives. Approximately 82% of those 2k added a complimentary adjective while describing their wives; the remaining 18% did not. While hardly a scientific study, this was a pretty good sample size.

Then, Joey Toks went to see if any of these families were also feuding. He checked public divorce records for the 2,016 male contestants who mentioned their wives to determine which of them found themselves divorced within five years of the show’s air date. Per Joey, only about 5% of the men who said nice things about their spouses were divorced. But those who didn’t? More than 15% of them were no longer married to the women they double dared to not be overtly complimentary of.

And for those who won big, the problem was even worse. Joey Toks also filtered for those contestants who won $40k or more on the show. Those men at the top of the $40,000 pyramid fared poorly. For their wives, the price was right — divorce made more sense than to remain married to a man who just cashed out but didn’t bother to compliment their better halves in the process. The sample sizes are obviously smaller, but 17% of the big winners found themselves back on the market.

The big lesson from this? If you want to keep your family together, be sure to say something nice about your spouse when asked. It’s the password to success.

Bonus fact: In 2011, the winnings of a then-ex-husband on Wheel of Fortune actually made its way into divorce court. Scott Dole won $51,600 on Wheel in 2009 (so, alas, Joey Toks didn’t capture his episode in his data set) but found himself divorced two years later. In most cases, it should go without saying that his ex-wife was entitled to half of that, but there was a wrinkle in this case: as the Seattle Times reported, his wife “Carrie Dole had filed for divorce well before the show” and never withdrew that divorce petition. But, per the Times, the two had briefly reconciled at the time period that corresponded with the filming of Scott’s Wheel episode. They re-separated shortly after the show filmed, but that brief moment was enough for the judge to side with Carrie.

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