Five times “Jeopardy!” Champion Brayden Smith has died unexpectedly, his mother said in a tweet Friday.
Smith, 24, was praised online as “Alex’s Last Great Champion” and was one of the final contestants to appear on the show with host Alex Trebek before he died of pancreatic cancer in November.
“He was kind, funny and absolutely brilliant,” the show said on Twitter on Friday. “Our deepest condolences are conveyed to Brayden’s family. They will miss him.”
In a video posted by “Jeopardy!” earlier this year, Smith reflected in his five-day streak with the program. “I just wanted to stay there as long as possible. It’s really a great feeling to be on set, to be by the side of warm and smart people and to be around Alex, who has been a kind of pillar of the my life, ”he said. .
Smith, a 2020 graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, had worked as an intern at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, where he investigated criminal justice reform issues, according to an obituary provided in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He was a voracious reader and self-taught, a lover of knowledge and a defender of justice. His room was full of books on political science, philosophy, economics and history,” the obituary said.
His obituary said he played the saxophone and enjoyed musicians like Duke Ellington and Steely Dan, and that he was a fan of classic and not-so-classic movies. “I could be explaining the symbolism to Citizen Kane one moment and the comic moment to Dumb and Dumber the next,” the obituary said.
Smith was expected to compete in the program’s upcoming Champions Tournament. He said in a video posted by the show, “‘Jeopardy!’ “It’s so much better than anything I could even imagine. Every moment since I was in the live studio has been a moment I’ve wanted to go back to.”
“I’m very grateful for everything, for all the opportunities I’ve had,” he said. “I’m glad we can do it and I’m glad to be able to prove what he was capable of.”
Her mother, Debbie Smith, said on Friday on Twitter that she was grateful that her son could live his dream in Jeopardy. “The outpouring of love for Brayden is overwhelming. We can’t express how much your beautiful comments comfort us during this painfully sad moment,” he said.