Jeopardy!’ host Ken Jennings reveals he spoke with Alex Trebek the night before he died

nypost.com:

died in November 2020 at age 80 after a battle with stage four pancreatic cancer.“I actually ended up talking to him what turned out to be the night before the day he passed away, about guest hosting for him,” Jennings recalled about Trebek during an appearance on the “Last Podcast on the Left” on Wednesday.

The topic came up when Jennings was asked whether Trebek had ever given him any advice about the job. “We actually didn’t know.

We thought, ‘Oh, he’s going to get better, he’s gonna bounce back, he’ll be hosting again.’ I was just going to fill in,” Jennings continued.

During what would end up being their last conversation, Jennings revealed that the two of them spoke about the game of “Jeopardy!”“You know, he gave me the impression he always did over the years, which was that he did not want to be the center of attention on ‘Jeopardy!'” the host said. “He was never announced as the star of ‘Jeopardy!’ — he was always the host of ‘Jeopardy!’ because he thought the game itself and the contestants should be the star.”Jennings, who is a previous “Jeopardy!” champion, began to permanently host the show alongside Mayim Bialik in September 2022 but appeared as a guest host many times before Trebek passed away.