Alex Trebek's Wife Speaks Out

After her husband’s sad passing, Jean Currivan Trebek is speaking out to fans.

Source: Michael Kovac / Getty

As previously reported longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died on Sunday, Nov 8, after a battle with stage four pancreatic cancer. He was 80-years-old. Since then, more details about his final moments have been released including the note that on the last day of his life he spent time swinging on a swing with his wife.

Now the woman he spent his final hours with is speaking on her lost loved one and thanking fans for their support at this heartbreaking time.

“My family and I sincerely thank you all for your compassionate messages and generosity,” she captioned a photograph from their 1990 wedding. “Your expressions have truly touched our hearts. Thank you so very, very much,” she continued. “Many Blessings to all, Jean Trebek.”

Alex was also recently remembered by viral Jeopardy! contestant Burt Thakur who previously tearfully told the host that he learned English because of him.

“I know people get upset when celebrities die,” Thakur said told LAist just hours after news of Trebek’s passing broke. “To me, he wasn’t a celebrity. To me, Alex Trebek was just another uncle.”

He also remembered the host with a passage from the Rainer Maria Rilke poem “Death.”

Another viral contestant who also just happens to be the all-time Jeopardy! champ, Ken Jennings, also spoke on the game show host’s passing and thanked him for being part of everyone’s family.

“I’ve compared Alex to Walter Cronkite before, and sometimes that’s met with pearl-clutching about what it means for our era that a mere quiz emcee might be our heir to one of the great newsmen of the century, Jennings wrote for TIME. “But I never meant to equate the two men in terms of their importance, or even their gravitas. Alex was, rather, the last Cronkite of reliability. He was part of the fabric of America’s evening—the center of a gathering place for the whole country, even as media was balkanizing into a million little niches everywhere else. People invited him over every night for decades, just to hear the calming sound of his voice. He wasn’t just a broadcaster. He was part of the family.”

Jennings is allegedly in the running to replace the TV icon.

Prior to his passing Alex pre-taped 35 episodes of Jeopardy! that will air unaltered leading up to the Christmas holiday.

R.I.P. Alex Trebek.