When it comes to women, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak is almost always associated with his on-screen sidekick Vanna White. But what many viewers may not know is that when he’s off the set, the TV icon is a traditional family man. His spouse, Lesly Brown, has stood by his side through tabloid reports, health scares, and political controversies. Find out everything we know about Pat Sajak’s wife and her loyalty to the outspoken game show personality.
Lesly Brown And Pat Sajak Have Been Married For More Than 30 Years
Sajak and Brown tied the knot in 1989. It was an unexpected move for the Wheel of Fortune host, who had been previously married. In fact, according to People, he was quite sure about staying single when Brown asked to make things official a year earlier.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” he told her.
The couple took the relationship at a slow and steady pace. They first met at the opening of a mutual friend’s sports bar in California. Over the next few months, they maintained a platonic, long-distance relationship.
“Often the calls were, ‘Well, I have to hang up now. I’m going out on a date,’” Sajak revealed. But by the next year, he said, “It was obvious that there was something more going on… I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
As a married duo, Brown and Sajak are proud to represent old-fashioned values. During the wedding ceremony, their priest proclaimed the great value of a wife “who is silent and keeps a clean house.” Sajak later joked, “Lesly swore to keep quiet and clean the toilet every day. I thought he should say a word about Mop & Glo.” Brown also dropped plans to attend law school so she could become a stay-at-home mom.
As the couple approaches 32 years of marriage, they are the proud parents of two adult children. Maggie Sajak, 26, is a former Princeton student and aspiring country singer. Less is known about their first child, Patrick Michael James Sajak. The 30-year-old seems to avoid the spotlight at all costs—his last public appearance was with his little sister over 20 years ago on Wheel of Fortune. Check the siblings out in this throwback clip below.
Lesly Brown Was Featured In Playboy
Perhaps Brown’s looks played a part in changing Sajak’s single status. The brunette stunner, who graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in television production, was a former Miss Georgetown.
She was also the subject of a 1988 Playboy pictorial highlighting the “Women of Washington.” According to People, Brown was “skimpily clad in sheer red lingerie” for the shoot.
Some might think it’s also worth mentioning that Brown and Sajak have a 19-year age difference. However, the age gap means very little to the couple or their families. Brown’s father even joked, “I finally have a boy in the family… I gave him a little car for Christmas and next year I am going to give him an electric train.”
The bride’s mother, Maria, also sounded unbothered by Sajak’s age and status. “This might be horrible to say, but we don’t watch TV that often,” she told the outlet. “And that is not going to change even if Pat is our son-in-law. We prefer reading and decorating the house.”
Pat Sajak’s Wife Was Right By His Side During His Health Scare In 2019
“I have had a good career,” Sajak said in 1990. “When the current phase sort of fades out, I don’t have to charge into something else. I would like to step back from it a little bit and raise a family.”
It’s incredible to see Sajak eat those words 30 years later. Despite ongoing rumors about bad behavior and imminent departures, he is still the face of Wheel of Fortune. The only major hurdle in his career came in 2019 when he suffered a sudden health scare.
In an interview with Good Morning America, Sajak revealed that he had emergency surgery for a blocked intestine. The intense pain, combined with the effects of medication, brought on a near-death experience. Brown and his children remained by his side to see him through it.
“In the background, I could hear my wife and daughter talking,” Sajak said. “It sounded like they were a mile off, but they were right next to me. They were talking to each other. And I remember thinking, not in a morbid way, ‘I think this must be death. This must be what death is like.’
“Hearing their voices, I thought, ‘Boy, their lives are gonna change now.’ And I felt badly for them. I didn’t feel badly about dying. I felt badly that they were gonna have to deal with the aftermath. As it turned out, I was just high.”
Watch him discuss the experience in the clip below.
Lesly Brown Went On A Dating Show And Made Pat Sajak Jealous
Some might say Sajak relied on the games to win Brown’s affection. In the couple’s 1990 interview with People, he told his spouse, “there was no electricity in the air” after their first encounter. “The subject of you didn’t come up in my car ride home.”
But it turns out Brown is the one who has him wrapped around her finger. Just before they met, she appeared on The Dating Game and won a trip to Mexico with a fellow contestant. Her south of the border jaunt with another fellow made Sajak green with envy.
“Frankly, I was a little annoyed at that,” he confessed.
“There was definitely borderline jealousy,” added Brown. “That was good.”
It was also enough to make Sajak put a ring on it. As soon as she returned, he presented her with a three-carat-plus marquise-shaped diamond. The rest is history.