Mina Kimes is a Korean-American business and sports journalist who works for ESPN as a sports analyst. She is best known among American Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? fans as the Phone-a-Friend lifeline who helped celebrity chef David Chang win $1,000,000 for charity.
David Chang's $1,000,000 question[]
| $1,000,000 (15 of 15) - Not timed | |
| Although he and his wife never touched a light switch out of fear of getting shocked, who was the first president to have electricity in the White House? "Phone-a-Friend" lifeline used. | |
| ⬥ A: Ulysses S. Grant | ⬥ B: Benjamin Harrison |
| ⬥ C: Chester A. Arthur | ⬥ D: Andrew Johnson |
| David didn't know the answer, so he used his last lifeline, Phone-a-Friend, to call his friend, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes, who told him that it was "probably Harrison" right before the 30-second phone call cut her off.
After the phone call ended, David reviewed Mina's answer, and decided whether or not to go for it. Jimmy Kimmel reminded David that no celebrity contestant had ever won $1,000,000, and that Norm Macdonald would have won $1,000,000 if Regis Philbin hadn't talked him out of risking $468,000. David then decided which would he regret more: walking away and finding out that Mina was right all along, and thus ending up like Norm Macdonald, or going for it and losing $468,000 (and ending up like Ken Basin, whom Jimmy Kimmel made no mention of at all, in order to not discourage David from going for it, although Jimmy nonetheless reminded David that he would lose $468,000 if he got it wrong). Ultimately, David decided that the hospitality industry is in such bad shape that $500,000 simply wasn't enough (and neither was $1,000,000, because it will take a much bigger government bailout to save many restaurants and other hospitality and tourism industries from going out of business), and decided to go for Mina's answer, B: Benjamin Harrison, as his final answer. Jimmy Kimmel proceeded to tell David that he was no Norm Macdonald, and he, Jimmy, was no Regis, but that David's "metallic testicles" just won $1,000,000 for his charity. Total Charity Winnings: $1 Million Explanation: Electricity was first installed in the White House in 1891. After winning $1,000,000, David and Jimmy decide to call Mina again in order to break the news to her. When Jimmy asked her to guess if David had gone for it or not, Mina told them that she was not confident at all in her answer, and only looked it up after the phone call was disconnected, and that she was also going to say "or [Grover] Cleveland" right after the phone call cut her off, an answer that was not even on the list. When David revealed to her that he had won $1,000,000, she screamed and reacted by saying, "Finally, my college education is justified!"; she graduated summa cum laude from Yale University. For his part, David Chang, who joked that he was a "terrible student, which is why [he] became a chef", isn't exactly as terrible of a student as he claims; he graduated from Trinity College, although he made the majority of his fortune in the culinary arts (his net worth is estimated at around $60 million), rather than through academics, and traveling around the world also made him knowledgeable about international cultures. |
Trivia and Notes[]
- In an interview after the show, Mina stated that had she given David the wrong answer, and he went for it and lost $468,000, she would have never been able to look him in the eyes again; fortunately for Mina, the 30-second phone call expired before she could give him a second answer, and the second answer that she was going to give him, Grover Cleveland, wasn't even an option.