Ryan Seacrest ‘Spinning With Excitement’ After Officially Taking Over ‘Wheel of Fortune’

First-day jitters nearly kept Ryan Seacrest up the night before he officially took over Wheel of Fortune . As the new host of the long-running game series, he’s picking up where veteran host Pat Sajak left off when he retired earlier this year after 41 seasons. Seacrest went behind the scenes of his latest gig on Instagram, offering insight into how it feels to fill such big shoes.

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“I’m still spinning with excitement,” he wrote in the caption of the post, which opens with some wheel-spinning ASMR. “I could not sleep last night, I was so excited,” he says in the clip. “I slept okay, but still very excited for the alarm to go off.”

Seacrest is settling into a whole new routine as he explores the studio for the first time. “The wheel’s maybe smaller than you think,” he observes. “As am I.” Browsing through the show’s memorabilia collection — featuring a number of Emmy Awards, one of Vanna White’s famous dresses, and some Wheel of Fortune-branded merchandise — the new host stood next to a cardboard cutout of Sajak and compared their heights, joking: “Who’s taller? He is — shocker.”

At the end of the clip, Seacrest skips away from the lot, still running on the high of his excitement for the new job. When Sajak exited the series, he told his successor: “You’re never going to find a better job, and you’re never going to find a better co-host.” White’s contract has been extended through the 2025-2026 season, so far.

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“I don’t know how to put into words what these past 40 years have meant to me but I’m going to try,” White shared in a video bidding farewell to Sajak. “8000 episodes went by like that. When I first started, I was so green. You made me so comfortable and so confident, Pat. You made me who I am, you really did.”

When it was first announced that Seacrest would be joining the show, he shared a lengthy statement of his own acknowledging the work put in before his arrival. “I’m truly humbled to be stepping into the footsteps of the legendary Pat Sajak,” he said. “I can say, along with the rest of America, that it’s been a privilege and pure joy to watch Pat and Vanna on our television screens for an unprecedented 40 years, making us smile every night and feel right at home with them.”

Seacrest added: “Pat, I love the way you’ve always celebrated the contestants and made viewers at home feel at ease. I look forward to learning everything I can from you during this transition.”

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