Alex Trebek’s replacement as Jeopardy host quits just 7 days after taking reins

Producer Mike Richards, the replacement for the late Alex Trebek to host Jeopardy!, has stepped down from the role after a week over backlash surrounding workplace discrimination and sexist commentary.

Claire McNear, a staff writer for The Ringer who was thoroughly investigating Richards, published an email to her Twitter from him, notifying the Sony quiz show staff on Thursday morning about leaving the role behind.

“It pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy as we look to start a new chapter, Richards wrote.

“However, over the last several days, it has become clear that moving forward as host would be too much of a distraction for our fans and not the right move for the show,” he continued.

Richards also noted that they will continue to look for a permanent host but will bring back guest hosts to “continue production for the new season” and wants to apologise for “unwanted negative attention” over the show.

“I know I have a lot of work to do to regain your trust and confidence.

Production on the show was canceled on Thursday.

People in the comments seemed to be in support of Richards relinquishing his hosting gig.

“Yay, it worked,” someone wrote.

“Called it lol. They shouldn’t [have] picked an inside guy without doing their due diligence... like they told the guy years ago he would take over and the guest host thing was just faux,” another wrote.

Someone else hopes they will choose to hire a previous guest host in the permanent role and wrote, “Great news. Hopefully, they pick someone who actually guest-hosted the show this time.”

Check out some other responses below.

When Richards was producer at The Price is Right, CBS faced two workplace discrimination lawsuits which were both settled out of court.

The suits were centered around his “mistreatment of female employees by Price’s male leadership, including Richards.”

In 2010, Brandi Cochran, a model filed a lawsuit against the show after Richards made jokes about how he would have fired Cochran if he knew about her pregnancy ahead of time. It was also alleged that Richards “decided that the models' skirts should be shorter” because he wanted the models to look like they were “going out on a date.”