Vanna White’s Final Spin
She’s settled into a delightful era of senioritis on Wheel of Fortune. America isn’t ready to let go.
Vanna White.
Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty Images
For a moment there, it seemed like the Vanna White story was going to end ugly. The 67-year-old presenter is the final standard-bearer of America’s game-show golden age—a TV generation that has been largely cleaned out by Bob Barker’s death, Pat Sajak’s departure, and the protracted succession battle for the Throne of Trebek. Left behind is an ersatz fleet of programming that, while the fault of nobody in particular, is a little cold to the touch. The ideal game show viewing experience should evoke memories of running a fever in your childhood bedroom at high noon, watching bleary-eyed as a trio of panelists guesstimate the retail cost of a vacuum cleaner. But Drew Carey is never going to become synonymous with The Price Is Right, and the selection of Ryan Seacrest for the Wheel of Fortune podium seemed specifically designed to lock the brand in institutional decline. (Ken Jennings, now on Jeopardy!, is a different, more complicated subject.) That makes Vanna White the last icon standing—a holdover from a glitzier time—and in the twilight of her career, she is asserting her own value more than ever.
In 2023, with Sajak headed for the exit and her own contract nearing its conclusion at Sony, reports surfaced that the once and future vowel merchant had not received a raise on her $3 million annual salary in 18 years. That’s a far cry from the $15 million Sajak was reportedly taking home, so White headed into negotiations for her next contract with the intention of leveling the playing field.
In the end, Wheel of Fortune blinked. White will be around for at least the next year after inking a contract extension lasting until 2026, with provisions that include the pay raise she coveted.
When the show returned last September with Seacrest as host, there were rumors of backstage tension between the new on-air pair. If that’s true, you can’t really tell. In fact, you could say that Vanna had gracefully embraced her senioritis era. The woman never held the heftiest job in show business; she touches letters, she maintains a vast wardrobe of sparkling floor-length dresses, she flashes telegenic grimaces to contestants who brick out on a consonant. (She has blithely joked about this fact herself for years: “I can’t say that it is a hard job, because it’s not,” she said in 2018.) But her relationship with Sajak—the subject of loosely sourced romantic intrigue for decades, and perhaps the show’s primary cultural draw—is no longer a daily performance. So it seems like a mostly checked-out Vanna is here to cash a few more checks while kindling a fine wooden chemistry with Seacrest for a couple of seasons before disappearing into the middle distance of a glorious Malibu sunset. The easiest job in broadcasting has somehow gotten even easier.
The day of her departure is surely coming sooner than later. Over the last several seasons of Wheel of Fortune, Maggie Sajak—the 29-year-old daughter of the venerable game show host—has been not-so-subtly groomed as a potential heir to White when she decides to hang up her heels. Maggie stepped onto the set in 2020 while her father was recovering from surgery in order to take on some hosting duties, and, more portentously, to touch some of those letters herself. (Today, Maggie serves as the show’s “social media correspondent,” which is a makework gig for old-money Hollywood nepo babies if I’ve ever heard one.) A furtive continuity plan for an aging superstar tends to be the stuff of relentless tabloid titillation, but Vanna herself has gestured toward this inevitability. Shortly after locking in the terms of her new deal, White conceded to E! that Maggie could make for a “good replacement” at the board. And in a pointed, Substance-tinged Instagram post last August, Maggie—who uncannily resembles a younger, blonder Vanna—swapped gowns with Wheel of Fortune’s matriarch and beckoned the commenters to guess which dainty number belonged to who. It was both an enormous body flex and, for longtime fans, a reminder that the sharks are circling.
Is Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune an odd thing to mourn? The comments on Reddit and Instagram that brace for the emotional impact of her retirement can seem a little absurd. But beyond childhood nostalgia, an older generation remembers Vanna the breakout star, and more importantly, Vanna the sex symbol. She was a woman worthy of a bestselling (if content-light) memoir; whose teased bangs appeared on a promenade of checkout-aisle magazine covers across the country throughout the 1980s. (“Vanna White—Her Seduction of America,” announced a headline in a 1989 issue of TV Guide, alongside an image of the host looking—it needs to be said—stunning in a pair of Princess Diana jeans.) Her stardom seemed to summon an unhealthy fusion of rage, thirst, and envy in the American ferment. The press dubbed it “Vannamania,” and it centered on an anxiety that endures to this day: How does a woman who reveals letters for a living achieve such a galactic level of fame? Does she deserve it? Must she, and the rest of girlhood, be brought to heel?
“Why did she become a role model for young women?” opined a flabbergasted Chicago Tribune in 1992. “Many of whom evidently aspired to a career in pointing and smiling?”
That question is downright myopic by modern standards, and not just for the blatant sexism. We have all become inundated by beautiful people through the locus of vertical video in 2024, and each of them reflexively understands that their own hotness is grounds enough for fame and fortune: the body-rolling yoga girls, the flexing Chads, the gorgeous couples on permanent vacation, Hawk Tuah, bounties of sponcon and discount codes—in some ways, it all comes back to Vanna White, who never apologized for earning so much by doing so little. In that sense, she’s a trailblazer.
In 2025, if anyone wishes to Be Like Vanna, you must exploit angles outside of network television. In a time of Addison Rae and Alix Earle, it is hard to imagine a socialite being forged on a game show set ever again. (If Maggie Sajak ever truly wants to eclipse her forebearer, she might need to learn the “Renegade” dance.) But as the only star left on the circuit, White is giving us one final gift as she prepares her exit. Her retirement and succession plan, whenever it comes to be, may very well be the last interesting story to surface on a game show. At the very least it will be far more compelling than whoever steps in for Steve Harvey on Family Feud. The saga will surely culminate with a few months of juicy speculation, and one tearful finale—a great exaltation of Vannamania before Seacrest shepherds the show to its funeral. She was always the most interesting person in the room, without anyone ever knowing why. That’s show business, baby.
