Ben Affleck and Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding walked away with the top prize on ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as they won $1 million for charity after successfully answering the show’s final two questions.
The Oscar-winning actor and the quiz champion secured the grand prize during the July 30 episode of the popular game show, with the winnings benefiting Affleck’s Eastern Congo Initiative, a non-profit organisation that supports community-led development projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The episode resumed with Affleck and Ding already deep into the competition, needing to answer just two questions to claim the top prize.
The £500,000 question asked which major achievement occurred just two months after a New York Times article claimed it would not happen for “1 million to 10 million years.” The options included splitting the atom, cloning a mammal, the first aeroplane flight and the polio vaccine.
Ding immediately leaned towards the Wright brothers’ historic first flight, while Affleck recalled reading about the newspaper’s famously inaccurate prediction.
The pair used their 50:50 lifeline, narrowing the choices to splitting the atom and the first aeroplane flight. Host Jimmy Kimmel confirmed they had chosen correctly.
The million-dollar question centred on the names of turkeys pardoned by U.S. presidents during the annual Thanksgiving tradition. Contestants had to identify which of four food-themed names had never been used.
Locking in “Spaghetti and Meatball” as their final answer proved to be the correct choice, earning the pair the show’s $1 million prize.
Affleck and Ding celebrated the victory as confetti rained down in the studio, embracing after becoming one of only a handful of celebrity teams to win the game’s top prize.
The win also adds Affleck to a growing list of celebrity million-dollar winners on the show, following his longtime friend Matt Damon.