Spoilers ahead for the July 30 episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on ABC, available streaming next day with a Hulu subscription.
Shenanigans were bound to ensue on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as soon as Matt Damon showed up to partner with Jeopardy legend Ken Jennings in the 2025 TV schedule, since Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t going to let a little thing like hosting a primetime game show stop him from reigniting their feud. That said, celebrities playing WWTBAM is all about charity, and even Kimmel seemed to be rooting for the duo as they approached the $1 million. They ultimately became just the third team of celebrities to ever win the top prize, and Damon was honest about how they got there.
The odds seemed good for Ken Jennings and Matt Damon to win the $1 million when they first appeared on WWTBAM last week, with Jennings calling out a lifeline trap and Damon going along for the ride while trading some gentle barbs with Jimmy Kimmel.
The top prize for water.org was in reach after they used their lifeline option to ask the host who fit the bill for the $500,00 question of “With another career path already established, who got his first taste of the entertainment world when he entered a Steve Martin look-alike contest?” Miraculously, Kimmel easily answered that Bill Nye was the lookalike guy, leading to the $1 million question:
“Which of these words is often used to describe one of the most beautiful auditory effects on Earth: the sound made by the leaves of trees when wind blows through them?”
- A. Apricity
- B. Petrichor
- C. Susurrus
- D. Eudaemonia
Never have I felt more in sync with Matt Damon than in the moment during WWTBAM when he honestly told Ken Jennings that “I got nothing” after Jennings explained why he was pretty sure the answer was C. Sussurus. I didn’t even know there was a word for that beautiful auditory effect, and I think Damon was on the same page based on his reaction.
All it took was the 50/50 lifeline, and Ken Jennings was confident enough in Sussurus that Matt Damon was confident as well. Jimmy Kimmel described the outcome as “the least dramatic million dollar moment in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire history” when the duo won the $1 million, while Damon had a seriously relatable reaction:
It is so awesome having Ken Jennings as your partner in a trivia game! I can’t even tell you.
Considering that Ken Jennings held the record for highest-earning American game show contestant for more than two decades, still ranks #2 among the ten biggest winners in Jeopardy history, and is the current host of Jeopardy, I doubt anybody could argue against Matt Damon saying it was “awesome” to be his Who Wants to Be a Millionaire partner!
All in all, I was prepared to watch twenty or so mediocre minutes of Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon feuding while Ken Jennings did the heavy lifting, but I had fun with their half of the episode. The old spark was back between Kimmel and Damon, and Jennings and Damon turned out to be a great duo. Yes, Jennings did indeed do the heavy lifting of trivia, but I wouldn’t call their segment mediocre! Besides, when the $1 million is for charity, even a long-running famous feud has to take a backseat.
