Mike Richards (television personality)

Richards began his career in college where he created, wrote, produced, and hosted a weekly late-night comedy talk show called The Randumb Show at Pepperdine University. The show featured celebrity guests including Kim Fields, Casey Kasem and Anson Williams.[1] He went on to intern for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Between 1996 and 2003, he regularly performed stand-up comedy in Los Angeles.[4]

Richards was the second host of Beauty and the Geek and produced numerous game shows, including Weakest Link.[5] He later hosted seasons of High School Reunion on The WB.[6]

During his early career, Richards was also the vice president of development and current programs for Dick Clark Productions.[1] He hosted the daily movie news show Dailies for three years and served as a correspondent for the American Music Awards and the 2005 Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.[7]

From 2009 to 2019, Richards was the executive producer of The Price Is Right and Let's Make a Deal.[8] He was also a candidate to host The Price Is Right in 2007 before Drew Carey was chosen.[9] In interviews of those two shows, Richards was described as "exclusionary and dismissive of longtime show employees"; he fired announcer Rich Fields and held on-air auditions, similar to the ones he later used on Jeopardy!, to hire George Gray as Fields's replacement, also dismissing longtime producer (and longtime right-hand man of Bob Barker) Roger Dobkowitz.[10] Richards often neglected Deal and was frequently absent from day-to-day operations. A post-producer was fired after sarcastically making an introduction, which drew attention to Richards's absences.[4]

Beginning in 2013, Richards hosted a podcast, The Randumb Show, which was promoted as a look at the production of Price. According to reporting by The Ringer's Claire McNear,[4] Richards, "repeatedly used offensive language and disparaged women's bodies". The Anti-Defamation League criticized his disparaging stereotyping of women, Jews, Asians, and the disabled on the podcast, and called for an investigation.[11] Asked for comment in 2021, Richards apologized for the material and took the podcast offline.[4][12]

Richards was the subject of two wrongful termination lawsuits from models on The Price Is Right; one lawsuit was by Brandi Cochran, who alleged that CBS and FremantleMedia discriminated against her by firing her after she became pregnant with twins,[13] and another was by Lanisha Cole, who claimed that Richards and fellow producer Adam Sandler (not to be confused with actor and comedian Adam Sandler) berated her in front of her peers and wrongfully terminated her.[3][14] The Hollywood Reporter stated that Richards made a disparaging comment about Cochran's pregnancy at a 2008 party,[13] and that Richards claimed she was fired because he thought that she "would not take us to great."[2]

Richards hosted GSN's 2012 revival of The Pyramid[15] and the network's 2017–18 version of Divided which aired on the network from 2017 to 2018.[16]

Richards left both Price and Deal in 2019 and joined Sony Pictures Television,[17] where he was assigned to the ABC primetime return of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as an executive producer alongside host Jimmy Kimmel and Michael Davies for the nine-episode first season of the show during the 2019–20 season.[18] Richards also served as the executive producer for the 2021 GSN revival series of Chain Reaction.[19][20] For the 2020–21 season, Richards succeeded Harry Friedman as executive producer of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy![21]

After Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died on November 8, 2020, Richards appeared at the start of the November 9 episode to pay tribute to him.[22] Richards later filled in for two weeks as a guest host of the show, with his first episode airing on February 22, 2021.[23] On August 4, it was reported that Richards had entered "advanced negotiations" to become the permanent host, though with other candidates still in contention.[24][25] After that announcement, a lawsuit filed against Richards and others during his tenure as the executive producer of The Price Is Right resurfaced, causing controversy.[25][26][27] On August 11, it was announced that Richards would succeed Trebek as host of the daily show, with Jeopardy! guest host Mayim Bialik hosting future prime-time specials and spinoffs.[28][29] However, on August 20, it was announced that Richards would step down after offensive comments he had made in the past emerged.[30][4] The five episodes Richards filmed the previous day, the show's first day of production on the new season,[31] aired in September to kick off the show's 38th season.[32]

Despite speculations that Richards would resign as executive producer of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! after the scandal, he retained that role at both shows with the full backing of Sony Pictures and the head of its television division, Ravi Ahuja.[33] However, on August 31, 2021, a week and a half after Richards resigned as permanent host, he was fired as executive producer of both shows. Michael Davies from Embassy Row served as interim executive producer for Jeopardy! following Richards's departure,[34][nb 1] and on April 14, 2022, was announced to be taking the role full-time.[36] On March 23, 2022, it was announced that Bellamie Blackstone would take over the executive producer role for Wheel of Fortune.[35] Bialik and Ken Jennings were eventually chosen as co-hosts for the syndicated version of Jeopardy! on July 27, 2022.[37]