Reports show Jeopardy! Defending champion Brian Henegar announced that he had quit Twitter due to abuse from fans who likened him to Hitler.
Tennessee native and Nazi comparison target Henegar said those who made the comparison a crowd of jerks for spoiling his fun.
Pilot Flying J truck stop employee Brian Henegar competed in the program, where he won every round and unseated champion Crystal Zhao.
The 40-year-old’s win should have silenced internet haters, but it didn’t.
According to the reports, Henegar posted on the social media platform Twitter that there were jerks who only wanted to talk about his looks, so he decided to take a break from Twitter.
Henegar had been on a roll, winning over $50,000 after beating Amanda Bain Wysocki and Crystal Zhao on Final Jeopardy.
Henegar, in jest, stated that his mustache is more comparable to actor Tom Selleck’s in his role as “Magnum PI.”
Henegar remarked that the initial tweets caused him to lose faith in humanity, but his faith was restored when he saw the messages of support.
In reaction to the Hitler comparisons, Henegar wrote that he would donate to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that combats anti-Semitism. Thus, the hatred will be productive, he tweeted.
Since the negative comments about his mustache, Henegar initially stated that he intended to shave it clean, noting the time required to keep it tidy, but later said that he would develop it into a goatee instead.
A TV blog reveals that the mustache debate escalated to the point that it was mentioned in the Weekend Update on the most current broadcast of Saturday Night Live.
WLAF reports that Henegar said that from childhood, he enjoyed participating in game shows at home.
The 40-year-old man first started attempting to join Jeopardy! over twenty years ago, when the program first started posting its tests online.
He claimed that his friends and family had always told him to follow his heart and never give up on his ambition.
Henegar’s father prayed for his son to get a chance to appear on Jeopardy.
His mother said she is proud of him for having accomplished his childhood aspiration.
