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Meghan Markle was such a huge fan of the game show Jeopardy! that friends sent her messages of condolence when the show’s long-term host Alex Trebek died in 2020.
Meghan shared her love of the show on the new episode of her Archetypes podcast in which she spoke with Starbucks chairwoman Mellody Hobson, wife of Star Wars creator George Lucas and cosmetics’ entrepreneur Victoria Jackson.
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The show was putatively about the word “bitch” and entitled, “To ‘B’ or not to ‘B,’” although Meghan coyly refused to say the word throughout the show, instead calling it the ‘B-word,’ frequently giggling before she uttered the stand-in phrase, saying she had a “visceral” reaction to the word.
Meghan opened the show by saying that adults remember the TV shows they were “always ready for” as kids, saying, “For me, this was Jeopardy! Jeopardy! was my favorite show growing up, and I would eat my dinner on a TV tray in front of the screen, watching each category with bated breath and intense focus, trying to absorb whatever facts they were firing off in the form of a question.
“My obsession with this show was so deep that when Alex Trebek passed away I started to receive texts of condolence. I didn’t know him but everyone who knew him knew how meaningful Jeopardy! and its host were as a daily part of my life. This love of facts extended into my love of words. Etymology, grammar, admiring people with expansive vocabularies—I was and I still am a word nerd. To that point I can think of many words that begin with the letter b…”
