Ken Jennings Blasted for Tweet He Chose Not to Delete

2014 tweet stayed live until Wednesday
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 26, 2020 8:30 AM CST
Ken Jennings Blasted for Tweet He Chose Not to Delete
This image released by JEOPARDY! shows Ken Jennings, a 74-time champion the the set of the popular quiz show. Jennings will be the first interim guest for the late Alex Trebek, and the show will try other guest hosts before naming a permanent replacement.   (JEOPARDY! via AP)

In the wake of Alex Trebek's death, Jeopardy! on Monday revealed that Ken Jennings would guest-host initially, with filming beginning Nov. 30. Page Six reports some of the reactions to the news were in the vein of Community star Yvette Nicole Brown's, who tweeted, “Nope.” When someone questioned her on it, she replied, "Peep his old tweets and get back to me." Or, really, one tweet: One from 2014 that read "Nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair." It garnered fresh notice in 2018, prompting Jennings to tweet this at the time: "I never did a public flogging thing for this but I did apologize personally to angry/hurt people who reached out personally. it was a joke so inept that it meant something very different in my head & I regret the ableist plain reading of it!" But the tweet stayed live.

It finally came down on Wednesday, but that didn't stop people from following up with tweets like this one, from @GraysonGoal: "#HotPersonInAWheelchair has trended several times. Many of us have reached out to call him on this with nothing said." IndieWire points out it's not the only tweet Jennings has been criticized for. It cites a few others, including one about a Star Wars fan who managed to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens just five days before his death. Jennings tweeted, "It can’t be a good sign that every fan who has seen the new Star Wars movie died shortly thereafter." (Elon Musk got into a Twitter spat with Jennings earlier this year.)

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