Wheel of Fortune player blows chances at $1 million bonus twice

In a shocking turn of events, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune blew away her chance to win a whopping $1 million bonus, not once but twice. The episode, released on Thursday, February 29, marked the arrival of Tara Brown, a player originally hailing from Hopkins, South Carolina. Tara lost her chance to collect the cash prize during a crossword round while going up against two other contestants.

After giving a wrong answer, there appeared a point of redemption for Tara but she failed to grab it again, leaving viewers gobsmacked. The format of the reality TV show entails contestants to guess hidden phrases by guessing masked alphabets, one at a time.

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What happened to Tara Brown on Wheel of Fortune season 41?

The South Carolina native competed against Zoe Tsongalis, who is a teacher from Rhode Island and Vincest Lassiter, a father-of-two hailing from Alexandria, Virginia. Their chance to win the $1 million prize arrived in the category namely “Let There Be Light.” The phrase displayed on the board had two blank alphabet spaces: “BULB, BEA_ _ N, SUN, STARS.”

To win the cash prize, Tara Brown was expected to give one correct hidden alphabet or complete the hidden phrase. In an unfortunate twist, Tara guessed an incorrect alphabet which was “H,” prompting the crowd to express their disappointment loudly.

The phrase was guessed correctly by Zoe Tsongalis, who read out: “BULB, BEACON, SUN, STARS.”

Tara got an opportunity to redeem herself when she grabbed the $1 million piece once again. She answered correctly to move her way up to the bonus round snagging the chance to win another $1 million. However, just like the last time, the South Carolina native failed to deliver the correct answer, thereby coming very close to winning the lump sum amount, but losing it all.

Wheel of Fortune consists of multiple rounds, in which three players must compete to be the first to guess the answer to a word puzzle. At the beginning of each round, the host reveals the category of the said puzzle. Along with this, spinning a roulette-style wheel allows each player to win dollar amounts as labeled on the wheel.

However, there are also two bankrupt wedges and one lose turn wedge placed on the circle. Landing on the lose turn option forfeits the contestants' turn, whereas the bankrupt option leads to direct elimination without any cash or prizes.

The official synopsis of Wheel of Fortune reads:

“Contestants guess hidden phrases by guessing letters one at a time. Contestants win money or prizes, as determined by a spin of the wheel, for each correct consonant they guess. But they have to pay to see what vowels are in a puzzle."

The synopsis continues:

"The contestant that has amassed the most winnings at the end of a game goes on to play the bonus round, in which the player can win even more -- prizes frequently seen in the bonus round include automobiles, vacations and more cash.”

Notably, this isn’t the first time when a player’s wrong answer has left viewers gagged. Last month, Megan Carvale had the audience upset when she lost out on the opportunity of snagging $40,000 on a simple puzzle.

The Wheel of Fortune contestant was made to guess the correct answer for the phrase: “P_N_ ORCHID.” Megan failed to guess the word “PINK” in the puzzle, thereby losing the lump sum amount.

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Those interested can watch Wheel of Fortune exclusively on NBC, but episodes of the gaming show are also available to stream on Pluto TV.