Hollywood actor Ben Affleck became the winner of the $1 million prize despite personal hardships including divorce and the loss of his mother.
On the 30th (local time), U.S. entertainment outlet Page Six and other foreign media reported that Ben Affleck and Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding grabbed the hard-to-come-by $1 million (Hanwha about 1.4 billion won) prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
According to reports, Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding appeared on the popular quiz show last Wednesday and answered the 15th and final question correctly to win the top prize. The prize will be donated to Ben Affleck's foundation, the Eastern Congo Initiative.
Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding received a question about the "achievement that actually happened just two months after The New York Times reported it would take from 100,000 years to 10 million years." They both answered in unison that it was the "first powered flight."
Host Jimmy Kimmel, mentioning that he had also hosted the program with actor Matt Damon, who is known to be a close friend of Ben Affleck, joked, "You are much smarter." They then answered correctly through the final question and became the $1 million winners.
The news came amid recent sad news in Ben Affleck's life. Earlier, on the 28th, U.S. entertainment outlet Us Weekly reported that Ben Affleck's mother, Chris Anne Affleck, died of cardiac arrest on June 2 at her son's home in Los Angeles. She had been battling pancreatic cancer for months after being diagnosed in December last year.
Prior to this, Ben Affleck had also gone through a divorce from Jennifer Lopez, with whom he reunited after 20 years and married, drawing attention as a "movie-like romance."
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