Beloved former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton has a Trivial Pursuit-based game show hosting gig on the way. He’s also expressed that he’d never host Jeopardy!, even if they producers asked him to do it. These remarks (and LeVar doesn’t have any hard feelings, he’s just being real) follow a fiasco of a year for the long-running show, after former executive producer Mike Richards held a disastrous one-week reign as host.
Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings continue to trade off hosting duties for the rest of the year, but of course, LeVar’s still fielding the occasional interview question on the subject. For the past few months, LeVar’s made it clear that he realized that the job wasn’t what he actually wanted, and his wife even let him know that the position didn’t come naturally to him. And here’s what LeVar has to say to Rolling Stone about those trolls who think he “sh*t the bed” while guest hosting:
“In the age of social media, you have access to the good, the bad, and the ugly of what people think about you, [like] seeing on my Twitter, ‘Oh, he was terrible!’ ‘He was the worst of all the guest hosts.’ ‘He sh*t the bed’ Sh*t the bed? I don’t think I was that bad! You gotta have thick skin. As Forrest Gump would say, ‘That’s all I’m gonna say about that.'”
Naturally, he’s taking the high road here while also acknowledging how “one of the downsides to fame is vulnerability.” That’s also one of the downsides to being a human being, so he’s not wrong because fame can amplify both positives and negatives to great degrees. He does, however, also reassure anyone who’s worried that “there was a lot of unnecessary concern that I was devastated,” when LeVar is doing just fine. The dude’s appreciative of those fans who came to him while saying he got stiffed, but LeVar wants to assure everyone that “one of the best things to come out of it was the love.”
Not only does LeVar have love on his side and a new game show in his future, but Ava DuVernay also expressed her hopes for a team up as well. The future is bright.
(Via Rolling Stone)
