Pat Sajak announces ‘Wheel of Fortune’ retirement after 42 years as presenter

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A happy flight. Pat Sayak announced that he is retiring from his long-running career as a host of Wheel of Fortune.

“Well, the time has come,” the game show host, 76, said in a statement Bloomberg News on Monday, June 12. “I have decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last. It’s been a great ride and I’ll have more to share in the coming months. Many thanks to all of you.”

Before the official announcement was made, the Chicago native hinted during a September 2022 interview with Entertainment tonight.

“We are nearing the end,” the game show legend told the outlet at the time. “We are not going to do this for another 40 years. The end is near.”

The beloved daytime program debuted in 1975 with Chuck Woolery as host. Sajak started hosting in 1981, which means he has been leading the popular series for almost all of its broadcast.

“It’s an honor to be in people’s living rooms for so long,” Sajak said ET. “People were there to welcome us. We are happy and proud.”

The Daytime Emmy winner also joked that he “gets to go before the show” goes off the air. “In most TV shows by then you would have said, ‘That’s probably enough,’ but this show isn’t going to die,” he added.

Sajak broke the Guinness World Record for longest-running game show host in 2019 — more than ever Bob Barkerwho was host The price is correct from 1972 to 2007. In 2021, the former radio show host celebrated his 40th anniversary on the show by sharing a few interesting facts about how long he had been on the program.

“When I started hosting Wheel (of Susan Stafford) on this date 40 years ago, including the top 10 TV shows Dallas, Three’s company, The Jeffersons And The Dukes of Hazzard” he tweeted in December 2021. “Ronald Reagan was in his first year as president. Number 1 song: ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John.”

In November 2019, the Columbia College Chicago alum took his first — and only — hiatus from hosting when he underwent emergency surgery for a blocked intestine.

Vanna Whitewho has been a hostess on the show for about as long as Sajak (she joined in 1982), filled in for the TV personality during his recovery.

“It felt really bizarre to know that things were going on without me. And I’m fine without me,” Sajak told ABC News in December 2019. “We had a chance to talk a bit. But I can’t tell her much. She knows how the show works. I was just trying to be encouraging and help on that level. But she enjoyed it.”

He further admitted that his health anxiety was a serious matter – for a moment he thought he wouldn’t survive.

“I remember thinking, not in a morbid way, ‘I think this must be death. That’s how death should be,” he said, recalling a moment when he heard his wife: Lesley Brown, and their daughter, Maggie, talking in his hospital room. “When I heard their voices, I thought, ‘Boy, their lives are about to change now.’ And I felt sorry for them. I didn’t mind dying. I felt bad that they would have to deal with the aftermath.