Michael G. "Mike" Richards (born July 5, 1975 in Burbank, California), is an American television personality and producer.
Career[]
Richards is best known as the second host of Beauty and the Geek, and has produced numerous game shows. Richards was, until the end of the 2018–19 season, the executive producer of The Price Is Right and Let's Make a Deal and was a candidate to host The Price is Right before Drew Carey was chosen. Richards hosted GSN's 2012 revival of The Pyramid and the network's 2016–17 version of Divided. Richards left both shows in 2019 and joined Sony Pictures Television, where he has been assigned to the ABC revival of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? as an co-executive producer with Jimmy Kimmel, who is also the host of the show, and Michael Davies for the eight-episode run in the 2019–20 season.
Following the death of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek on November 8, 2020, Richard filled in as an interim guest host, with his first episode airing on February 22, 2021. He was slated to succeed Trebek as host of starting with the 38th season. However, after his past offensive remarks became public, he resigned after one week, and was ultimately fired as executive producer of both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
Wheel of Fortune[]
On August 29, 2019, Sony announced that Richards would succeed as executive producer of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! from the retiring Harry Friedman at the start of 2020-21 season. On August 31, 2021, Richards was fired as executive producer of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Michael Davies from Embassy Row (a Sony-owned production unit since 2009) was assigned to serve as interim executive producer until a permanent replacement could be hired; however, it was later discovered that, although Davies has performed those duties (and received credit) on Jeopardy!, he was not present at Wheel tapings, with the 'Executive Producer' credit line eventually being removed from the the latter show for the remainder of Season 39 (largely resembling a situation last seen in early January 1990). Instead, long time supervising producer Steve Schwartz performed the in-studio duties previously associated with Richards, Friedman (1995-2020), and Nancy Jones (1976-95) in Davies' absence. Starting in Season 40, Bellamie Blackstone will take over as executive producer of Wheel, with Schwartz being promoted to serve alongside her as co-executive producer[1].