ABOVE: On an episode of The Price is Right that aired May 5, Danielle Perez — who has no feet — won a treadmill and a walk-in sauna.
TORONTO — The Price is Right is taking a lot of heat on social media for awarding a treadmill and walk-in sauna to a contestant in a wheelchair — but the contestant is baffled by the furor.
“I don’t get why people are so upset about it,” said Danielle Perez, who lost her lower legs in an accident in 2004.
“No one needs to do any of that. I’m having the best day of my life.”
The Los Angeles comedian said she had a good laugh about her prizes when the show was taped earlier this year. She was not allowed to talk about her win on social media until the episode aired Tuesday.
“It’s so crazy. I mean, it’s hilarious,” Perez told The Roz and Mocha Show on Toronto radio station KiSS 92.5. “The irony of a woman in a wheelchair with no feet winning a treadmill. I think it’s the funniest thing in the world. This is great. This is the best thing that’s ever happened.”
In a statement, show producers CBS and FremantleMedia explained: “Every member of The Price Is Right studio audience has a chance to be selected to play. Prizes are determined in advance of the show and are not decided based on the contestants.”
Producers said men often win packages that include women’s apparel and some contestants win trips to their hometowns.
Perez said at the taping “everyone was so straight-faced about it” but she saw the humour in her prizes.
“I was cracking up. It was obviously hilarious.”
Perez said a taping of The Price is Right is exhausting so she was just happy to be on the show with host Drew Carey.
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“By the time I got on stage we had probably been there three, almost four hours,” she recalled. “You’re in a studio with no windows and you are rewarded for how insane you act. Anything they throw at you, you’re excited for.”
Perez said she was not given an option to take the cash value instead. “They give you the prizes and either you accept them or decline them.”
She said she hasn’t received her prizes yet — the show has 90 days from the original air date to deliver them — but she plans to keep them.
Here’s a sample of the reaction on Twitter to the awkward moment.
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