The Price Is Right model Manuela Arbelaez admits that she made the “biggest mistake ever in game show history” when she gave away a car worth $21,960. Fortunately, Drew Carey and the rest of the producers of the show are embracing the mistake by turning it into a positive experience.
In a related report by the Inquisitr , former host Bob Barker made a surprise return to The Price Is Right on April Fools’ Day.
So, how did the Price Is Right model accidentally give that car away? The lucky mistake happened this past week with a contestant named Andrea, who was guessing the price of a brand new Hyundai Sonata SE. Andrea tried wrongly guessing $19,849 at first, but Manuela Arbelaez not only removed the first price tag, but also went ahead and revealed the next price tag for $21,960, which showed the winning answer.
According to Manuela Arbelaez, she thought the game was over after the first incorrect guess and that’s why she revealed the correct answer.
“I thought [the contestant] only had one chance to guess the price of the car, and after I heard the buzzer, I’m like, ‘All right, game over.’ When someone loses our natural reaction is to reveal the remaining tags to show the audience and the viewers the correct price.”
After a brief pause, Andrea screams out, “I won it!” Manuela Arbelaez says she was absolutely mortified and she immediately thought she was going to be fired or the show would take the cost of the car out of The Price Is Right model’s paycheck.
“I wanted to go in a wormhole and disappear,” the 26-year-old admitted. “I knew there was no way to fix it. I went to this dark place, and I thought I’d get fired or it would be taken out of my paycheck.”
Fortunately, Drew Carey proved her wrong immediately.
“I know Drew’s facial expressions, and I’ve never seen that in his face,” Arbelaez said , according to the Daily News . “He was so shocked, but at the same time he thought it was the funniest thing ever.”
Regardless, Manuela Arbelaez admits that her mistake will probably set a record for a long time to come.
“It’s pretty heavy,” said Arbelaez, who broke down crying on the show after hiding behind the set. “It’s the most embarrassing, biggest mistake ever in game show history — or this is one of the top five…. I’m a perfectionist. I’m very hard on myself. I do things right. I’ve never made a mistake in those six years. And of course the one mistake I make, it’s the biggest mistake in ‘Price is Right’ history.”