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A Jeopardy! Romance


Emily Cloyd and Stacy, her wife

As much as we love to read the enemy-to-friends-to-eventually-lovers troupe, we don’t ever think it could happen in real life. But it does happen all the time, not just in romance novels, and not always in the romantic setting of say, something like a coffee AU. No, for Emily Therese Cloyd she met her life-long partner on Jeopardy! ten years ago.


After the release of a recent ABC’s News special featuring a long form interview with Alex Trebek, Cloyd took to Twitter to remind us that love can come from anywhere, even when your future lover is a rival competitor on a game show.


Cloyd tweeted about how, throughout the auditioning process of Jeopardy!, a lengthy process of interviews, she met a contestant named Stacy but the two never spoke. Eighteen months later, when she nails the spot on Jeopardy!, once she arrives at the set, she sees Stacy, the other woman who had auditioned on the same day. It turns out, through fate and a little bit of will, that Stacy would be competing against Cloyd that day.


Unfortunately for Cloyd, she ended up getting completely destroyed in the competition by Stacy. Still Cloyd was a good sport about it.


Turns out, Stacy and Cloyd both lived in the Washington, D.C. area, so they organized a joint viewing party of their show. Even more coincidentally, the two had attended the University of Michigan, although at different times. What started out as game-show rivals budded into a happy friendship, to eventual lovers as the two began to date for two years, till eventually they got engaged.


Of course, they invited Trebek to the wedding, and he couldn’t attend. But he still responded with a note saying, “all the best + thank you!”




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