LeVar Burton: ‘Jeopardy!’ hosting snub taught me ‘perfect nature of all things’

nypost.com:

which was a stunning rejection at the time — but he’s apparently not holding grudges anymore.“It really cemented to me that everything happens to me for a reason, right?” Burton told the A.V.

Club in an interview published Monday.He said the dismissal sent him into a period of self-reflection — and he now believes the experience taught him “the perfect nature of all things.”He had even tried out the job for several episodes before longtime “Jeopardy!” executive producer Mike Richards scored a short-lived stint as the show’s lead in August 2021, beating out a surprised Burton.

Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialkpermanently landed the gig in July 2022 and Burton was officially out of the running. “I thought that I had a really good shot at getting the job,” Burton told A.V.

Club. “What I didn’t know at the time was that it really wasn’t an audition.”Richards’ hosting stint only lasted three weeks as he stepped down after allegations arose about sexist language and his self-acknowledged “insensitivity” in the past. “The executive producer, the man who was hired to teach me how to play the game, who said he didn’t want the job but his job was to help them find the right person for the job, that person gave themselves the job,” Burton recalled of Richards, but didn’t refer to him by name. “I was disappointed — I’m not gonna lie.