Ben Affleck and Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding won $1 million on the ABC game show 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' during a celebrity guest appearance. The duo, paired for charity, answered the final $1 million question correctly, securing the prize for Affleck's Eastern Congo Initiative, a nonprofit he co-founded in 2010 to support Congolese communities.
The episode, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, aired Wednesday and featured a question about U.S. presidents' pardoned turkeys. Affleck and Ding used the Phone-A-Friend lifeline to consult Ding's longtime trivia partner, Stephen Morrison, and the Ask-The-Host lifeline to seek Kimmel's input. The final question asked which of four turkey names had not been pardoned by a U.S. president: Peanut Butter & Jelly, Tater & Tot, Mac & Cheese, or Spaghetti & Meatball. After deliberation, they chose Spaghetti & Meatball as the incorrect name, which proved correct.
Affleck, who has worked with the Eastern Congo Initiative for 15 years, mentioned the organization's efforts to combat the Ebola crisis in the region. The win comes a year after his best friend, Matt Damon, also won $1 million on the show for his charity, Water.org, paired with Ken Jennings.
The episode aired shortly after news broke of Affleck's mother's passing from pancreatic cancer.