"Wheel of Fortune" is a platform for common Americans to win a dream trip or drive away in a car. On the other hand, "Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune" hosts generous celebrities who play games only to give away their winnings to charity. "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" star Melissa Joan Hart appeared on the show in 2021 and bagged the rare million-dollar wedge and won it too. What made it more special was that it was all for a good cause as the actress donated everything to charity.
Hart was competing in the primetime episode against fellow stars Tituss Burgess and Lacey Chabert. She was playing for the Youth Villages charity, an organization that helps young people with emotional, mental, and behavioral problems. “They serve families and children across 23 different states at every kind of level, going through foster care and aging out of foster care especially,” Hart explained on the show.
Through the episode, Hart demonstrated impressive puzzle-solving skills. In the initial rounds, she landed on the Million Dollar Wedge twice after spinning the wheel and solving both puzzles. Her opponent and long-time friend Chabert was also on a great run after solving the show's first puzzle without any clues. However, it was Hart who had the lead in the end to go into the bonus round of the show.
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For the final puzzle, Hart picked the "Food & Drink" category before spinning the wheel for a golden envelope. She then took center stage alongside host Pat Sajak to take on the bonus puzzle. With the standard letters, R, S, T, L, and E filled in, Hart chose the additional letters G, M, W, and A as her additional letters. With this, the puzzle read, "_RAN M _ _ _ _ NS".
As the clock started ticking, Hart looked confident about her guess. Without wasting much time, she said, "BRAN MUFFINS" out loud as her answer. Sajak and the show's co-host Vanna White revealed that her answer was correct. To add to her delight, Sajak revealed that she had won a million dollars from her golden envelope.
With this, Hart became the fourth player in the show's history to win $1 million. Talking to USA Today, Hart said that White gave away her winning moment early. "Vanna White's face turned white. Vanna looked at me and was like, 'You got it! You got it!' I hit the roof. She hit the roof," she told the publication. Sharing the exciting moment on Instagram, the actress further wrote that it was an amazing feeling to be on the show that she used to watch with her mother as a kid. "I still have the confetti at home. And they let me keep the $1-million chip, Pat and Vanna signed it for me," Hart said in the video.
Youth Villages also watched the episode and celebrated Hart's win on social media as well. "BRB, we're on cloud 9 right now! @melissajoanhart did it!! She won 1 million dollars for Youth Villages!!!" the organization wrote on Instagram.
In the USA Today interview, Hart revealed that it was a nerve-racking moment for her. "It was super exciting and pretty nerve-wracking; I rarely win game shows," referring to an epic loss in an episode of the 1998 "Celebrity Jeopardy" match.
