My divorce left me in crippling debt — winning ‘Jeopardy!’ changed my life
winnings that exceeded $130,000.Slaven was buried in an estimated $30,000 to $40,000 worth of legal and “retail therapy” debt, he told Business Insider in an as-told-to essay.It wasn’t until the long-time “Jeopardy!” viewer and Canadian saw an ad calling for game show contestants in the Los Angeles area ahead of his business trip to Utah in the early ’90s.“I thought Utah, that’s in the Los Angeles area,” he told Insider. “Only a 10-hour drive.”While there was “no guarantee” he would get a callback, a week after the audition, his phone rang with “that life-changing call, telling me I was going to be on the show.”And the rest was history: He went on to be a five-time champion in Season 8, earning a whopping $53,000.He could “could finally pay off those bills, with a little extra left over” — and even marry the woman of his dreams.The pair previously met in Vancouver, British Columbia, during Slaven’s brief stint in the city post-divorce, but at the time, he “felt bad” about his accumulated debt and let the spark fade away.But after scoring big on the game show, the freshly debt-free bachelor could finally pursue a relationship with her, and invited her to watch the “Jeopardy!” shows with him in 1992 when they aired.