Celebrity Bear Hunt star Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and his wife Jackie won an impressive £500,000 for charity on the celebrity special od when they appeared on the show in 2006 but it wasn’t without it’s controversy.
The couple were given a second stab at the £1 million question after producers deemed the original, which they got wrong, had been “ambiguous”.
They were appearing in aid of the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, which the then host of the show Chris Tarrant was also a patron of, and gave a sterling performance making all the way to the half million mark, a feat rarely achieved on the quiz.
Having made it to the final question they were faced with the brain teaser: “Translated from the Latin, what is the motto of the United States?”
Laurence confidently answered: “It’s In God We Trust.” While that is indeed an official US motto and appears on US currency it transpired it is not a translation from Latin. The answer the show was actually seeking was “One Out Of Many”, another US motto, which is translated from the Latin “E Pluribus Unum” and has appeared on the country’s Great Seal since 1782.
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Jackie and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen were given a second chance at the £1 million question (Image: ITV)
The incorrect answer meant the couple’s winnings plummeted from £500,000 to just £32,000 for the charity. However, immediately afterwards they were offered an olive branch.
A spokesperson for the production company Celador said they were “not satisfied that the question they went out of the game on meets our usual high standards of fair game play”.
They then gave them a second chance at the final question and the husband and wife team returned to the show the following night to try their luck.
The return meant they were guaranteed to garner either at least £500,000 for the cause with the possiblity of taking away the £1million top prize if they answered correctly.
“How unusual is it to get a second chance in life? But as far as we are concerned this charity really deserves this, so we’re clearing our diaries and going back for another onslaught and are grateful to Celador for the opportunity,” Laurence told The Telegraph at the time.
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Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is taking part in the new Netflix series Celebrity Bear Hunt (Image: Getty)
The pair got a second chance to win £1m on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? – but decided not to answer the jackpot question.
The TV designer was invited back after producers admitted setting an ambiguous final question the first time around.
In their second shot at the £1m charity windfall, Llewelyn-Bowen and his wife Jackie were asked to identify the first man to travel into space twice.
But they decided not to gamble and took £500,000. The answer was Gus Grissom.
Llewelyn-Bowen said: “I’m not going to risk what we’ve got. I’m not looking at the answers, I’m looking at that which says we’ve got £500,000.”
Sadly the top prize was not to be. They decided to take the £500,000 and leave as they were not prepared to risk losing £468,000 again.
Speaking about it on last year Laurence admitted they had a strategy for their return to maximise their winnings.
“We had a whole brouhaha the next day and then we did go back and answer a different question. We were just about to go back on and Jackie said, ‘listen, if they ask you the names of your children, don’t even answer it. Just let’s get the half a million for the hospice and carry on.'”
He also said former host Chris Tarrant still had “PTSD” from the incident. “His PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] is ridiculous. If ever we’re in the same room he kind of runs in the opposite direction.
“He’s a patron of the charity as well, so he was sitting there thinking amazing, we’re just opening this children’s hospice and there’s a million quid. And then he saw the answer, and it was just gurk.”