Whitney Beseler, is a female physical education teacher from Australia, who gained worldwide viral notoriety after appearing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Hot Seat and incorrectly answering a $100 question that she knew the answer to, simply because she read the question improperly.
Whitney's Run
| $100 (1 of 15) - 15 seconds | |
| Which of these is not a piece of jewellery commonly worn to symbolise a relationship between two people? | |
| • A: Engagement ring | • B: Anniversary ring |
| • C: Wedding ring | • D: Burger ring |
| Contestant is eliminated from the game and leaves with no prize money, but gets a bag of burger rings as a consolation prize; the top prize in this episode was reduced to $250,000 | |
| Burger rings are an Australian snack food that resemble onion rings, but are designed to mimic the flavor of cheeseburgers. Whitney did not read the question properly, and chose B: Anniversary ring as her final answer, but the correct answer was D: Burger ring, and she did not realize her mistake until it was too late. After she flunked out, she admitted that it was the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to her, and asked if she could start over. Host Eddie McGuire told her that there are no second chances on the show, and that she was out of the game, and gave her a bag of burger rings as a consolation prize. | |
Trivia and Notes
- Many of the news articles that criticize Whitney Beseler also seem to have improperly read the question, as if she answered D: Burger ring, but the correct answer was B: Anniversary ring. The question was, "Which of these is NOT a piece of jewelry commonly worn to symbolise a relationship between two people?". She answered B: Anniversary ring, but the correct answer was D: Burger ring.
- Whitney may have thought that the answer was B: Anniversary ring because they are relatively rarer compared to engagement rings and wedding rings, and because she may have also initially thought that D: Burger ring was a joke answer.
- On both the U.K. and U.S. versions, for the very first question, answer D tends to usually be a joke answer that is always incorrect. However, this is not always the case (Brenton Andreasik's first question being an example).
- After initially stating that she wanted to lock in B: Anniversary ring as her final answer, host Eddie McGuire did not initially lock her answer in, and told her to have another look at the question, providing her with a hint that she was not reading the question properly. She did not take the hint, and continued to go for answer B until the clock expired, and she did not realize her mistake until it was too late, although after she flunked out, McGuire did not tell Whitney that she flunked out because she did not read the question properly.
- It should also be noted that on the UK and U.S. versions, it only takes the contestant one time to say "final answer" for their answer to be finalized. On the U.S. version, this has caused a number of contestants to flunk out prematurely because they spoke too fast, especially on the Clock Format, causing them to misspeak and accidentally say an incorrect answer.
Gallery
Whitney Beseler reads her $100 question improperly.
