Vanna White said Alex Trebek has a strong enough will to “conquer” his stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
The “Wheel of Fortune” hostess was at the 26th Annual Race to Erase MS gala in Los Angeles last Friday when she talked about Alex Trebek’s strength amid his diagnosis to Entertainment Weekly.
“He’s hanging in there,” White said. “He is a strong man and has such a will to conquer this.”
White then revealed Trebek had told her about his diagnosis before he had made the announcement publicly back on March 6.
“We’re a family,” she said. “We’ve been together for over 30 years. Even though ‘Jeopardy!’ is different from ‘Wheel,’ we’re kind of the same.”
The “Jeopardy!” host talked more about his cancer treatment in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning recently.
“This got really bad,” Trebek admitted to host Jane Pauley. “I was on the floor writhing in pain. It went from a 3 to an 11. And I just couldn’t believe. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“And it happened three or four times a day while we were taping,” he explained. “So that was a little — little rough on me.”
Still, Trebek pushed through the pain, despite one situation where he barely made it to his dressing room and ultimately “cried in pain” when he got there.
“And, the producers were very kind. They said, ‘Look, if you don’t wanna do the show, we’ll just cancel taping.’ I said, ‘No. We’re here. We’re doing the shows,'” Trebek insisted.
