All of those fan campaigns for LeVar Burton to host Jeopardy! did not end up working much magic. We all know what happened there, regarding former executive producer Mike Richards and his disastrous one-week reign as host, all of which left Jeopardy Productions searching again for a host (with Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings sharing duties for the rest of the year). LeVar stayed lovable in the aftermath while revealing how he realized that he didn’t really want the job, although that hasn’t stopped people from asking him about it.
LeVar has actually started to push back (although he’s still being classy, like he truly is) on Twitter, where he called out a journalist who suggested that LeVar would take the job “in a heartbeat” if asked. And when The Daily Beast recently broached the subject with him, the former Reading Rainbow host wanted to set the record really straight. Dawn Ennis asked LeVar what he would do if approached by Jeopardy! to please take the job, and LeVar was like no way: “I’d say, ‘No. You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re out of your mind. Goodbye!’”
As if that wasn’t clear enough, LeVar’s moving forward, and he elaborated:
“I want to make it clear, for the record, that I’m really happy with the way things worked out… I was disappointed to not get the job, but I’m the sort of person, I believe that everything happens for a reason. And if I didn’t get that job, that meant it wasn’t supposed to be for me, and I accepted that almost instantly and willingly. I know that the opportunities that are in front of me right now wouldn’t have come my way had I gotten the job, so I’m certain that this has worked out better for me than I could ever have imagined.”
That’s a more than fair answer. Hopefully, that’s the end of the discussion, and hopefully, Ava DuVernay’s suggested team-up with the Star Trek: The Next Generation actor will actually materialize.
(Via The Daily Beast)