‘Jeopardy!’ & ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Hit With Discrimination Claims by 2 Longtime Employees

Darian Lusk October 24, 2024, 4:48 pm

Ken Jennings and Pat Sajak — Jeopardy, Inc!; ABC/Wheel of Fortune

Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune have been accused of creating a toxic work environment by two former employees of parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. The two former employees filed civil rights complaints, which were obtained by USA Today on Thursday (October 24).

The former employees claimed they were “targeted by Sony” and ultimately fired for raising concerns about staffers making disparaging remarks about Black contestants (including crew members mocking contestants’ hairstyles), were given fewer opportunities than white colleagues, and were subjected to racially problematic behavior.

One of the former employees is Shelley Ballance Ellis, a 60-year-old who said she was the “highest-ranking Black production executive” on both game shows and had a 26-year tenure. The other employee is Monique Diaz, who is Latina and worked on both shows for 23 years. In April, both employees were reportedly laid off in what the company dubbed a corporate reorganization, according to the outlet.

Ballance Ellis led the clearance and licensing department, obtaining legal rights to video clips, artwork, and music for both shows. She told USA Today that she had a “front-row seat” to discriminatory actions and detailed multiple troubling instances that she flagged to higher-ups, but were largely ignored. One involved a racially insensitive joke during a Wheel of Fortune production meeting in 2020. She claimed a Black employee said he overheard colleagues saying a Black woman’s hairstyle reminded them of the movie The Elephant Man, about a man who is disfigured. When a director shared he and the crew members were just joking, Ballance Ellis recalled asking: “Which part is funny?”

Ballance Ellis also cited how, in 2017, Wheel of Fortune issued an apology after an episode during “Southern Charm Week” showed Pat Sajak and Vanna White in front of a plantation and two slave reenactors in antebellum garb. But in 2023, a Black employee was reportedly told to create a shot list of plantation footage the producers were considering for Sajak’s retirement episode.

Ballance Ellis said she also flagged problematic Jeopardy! clues before her firing. She cited this 1999 “Black History” clue in her complaint: “The black population of these U.S. areas, the destination of ‘white flight,’ doubled in the ’70s and ’80s.” The answer was “the suburbs.”

“I mean to think that people are moving out of a neighborhood because Black people move in. That is not Black history of anything,” she said. “After that happened, people I knew were offended and in my opinion, rightfully so. I was embarrassed to work somewhere where that happened.”

Finally, she shared she asked for a promotion but was passed over, a supervising producer saying she was “incredibly valuable in the position that she is in.” When she was forcibly let go, her duties were handed to a younger white woman.

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Diaz detailed her troubling experiences in her complaint, saying she was paid substantially less than a newly hired white colleague before her firing. One incident involved attending a meeting where a production supervisor mocked Leslie Jones’ request to bring her own hairstylist for Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. Another instance involved an employee reportedly approaching Diaz in 2023 to share that a supervising producer said Black people’s skin was “not aging as rapidly as white people’s skin.” “I felt the environment was very discriminatory,” she said.

Both parties claimed “they knew” they were making tens of thousands less than white employees in similar positions, with requests for raises under equity pay adjustments ignored by human resources, who eventually acquiesced but gave them substantially less than requested, before they were both fired and allegedly replaced by younger, white staffers.

TV Insider received the following comment from Sony Pictures Entertainment: “Sony Pictures Entertainment takes all allegations of discrimination very seriously. Earlier this year there was a broad reorganization of our game show group that resulted in the elimination of several roles to address redundancies and evolving business needs of a 40+-year-old operation. Those eliminations were business efficiency decisions and not retaliatory. Further, the past few years have been a time of significant transition and internal reorienting for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, driven by a new leadership team who are profoundly dedicated to fostering a culture of inclusivity and respect. We are anchored to these values as we usher in a new era for our game shows with tenacity and circumspection.”