‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Ryan Long Wows Fans With New Look

Martin Holmes August 9, 2023

Former Jeopardy! champion Ryan Long surprised fans over the weekend with a rare social media post, where he shared a selfie of his new clean-shaven look and also appeared to have lost weight.

“Just checking in on planet Earth, hope you’re all doing well today. #clean,” Long tweeted alongside the photo, which sees the fan-favorite contestant sporting a baseball cap and Superman chain. Unlike his bearded look on Jeopardy!, Long is completely clean-shaven in the new snap.

“Wow! At first I thought this was your son. You look fabulous!!!” commented one fan.

“Wondered how you were doing…glad you checked in! Looking healthy (and young!) with that clean shave,” said another commenter.

Just checking in on planet Earth, hope you’re all doing well today. #clean pic.twitter.com/ZLSunrPJtX

— Ryan Long (@blirish_charm) August 5, 2023

“Hi from Australia I watched you on Jeopardy and you are by far my most favourite champion. Your humility and modesty was inspirational. Hope you’re doing well,” wrote another.

When one fan asked what’s new in his life, Long replied, “Just been working on myself… though it looks like this app has been through more changes than me. Lol.”

Long, a Philadelphia-based Uber driver, appeared on Season 38 of Jeopardy! last June, winning 16 consecutive games and total earnings of $299K. At the time, some viewers believed that Long lost on purpose, though the man himself denied those claims.

“I didn’t throw the game,” Long told USA Today at the time. “I didn’t lay down for it, but I wasn’t sad that I lost either. I felt like I was maybe ready to go, but I didn’t lay down.”

After his time on the show, Long explained that he was hospitalized in January 2021 for three weeks with a serious case of COVID-19. His doctors even questioned whether he would survive. Thankfully, Long recovered, though he had to quit his job at the public transportation authority SEPTA due to the physical strain.

Ahead of the 2022 Tournament of Champions, Long told PhillyMag.com that his “memory has been shot” since he had COVID. Long was eliminated from the TOC in the first round.

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Talking about his hospitalization to the official Jeopardy! website, Long revealed, “I still keep the picture my doctor gave me of my saturated lungs on my phone as a reminder of how close I came to never seeing my son again.”

After his success on Jeopardy!, Long focused on his health and making a better life for his son, Nathan.

“[Nathan] wants to come to California; he wants to go to the theme parks. The best thing is, I have time to do these things with him now,” Long said in a Q&A with Mayim Bialik. “I don’t have to, you know, work and say ‘I can’t do it,’ now we can just go wherever we want.”

“The [COVID] experience taught me not to take anything for granted,” he added, “and it relit a fire in me that I thought had gone out a long time ago: the fire to do something with my life.”