It took a question about pardoned turkeys, a nervous host, and a phone call that ran out the clock, but Ben Affleck did it. On the July 29, 2026 episode of ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Affleck and his partner, 31-game Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding, answered the million-dollar question correctly and sent $1 million to the Eastern Congo Initiative, the nonprofit Affleck co-founded in 2010.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Almost exactly one year earlier, on July 30, 2025, Affleck's lifelong friend Matt Damon sat in the same chair with Ken Jennings and won $1 million for Water.org. Two Boston kids, two Jeopardy! legends, two million-dollar checks, 364 days apart. Jimmy Kimmel could not have scripted it better, and he has spent decades pretending to feud with Damon.

The Setup: Celebrity Pairs and a Jeopardy! Ringer

The 2026 edition of Kimmel's primetime revival premiered on July 22 with a familiar twist. Instead of a celebrity playing alone, each star is paired with a partner, and this season leaned hard on trivia heavyweights. Ding was the obvious get. His 31-game run on Jeopardy! earlier this year ended on April 27 with $885,605 in regular-play winnings, good for fifth place on the all-time consecutive-wins list. Pairing him with Affleck gave the episode both star power and a genuine safety net.

Affleck seemed to know it. When the final question came up, he turned to Kimmel and said, "You must be kidding me." A few minutes later he was laughing about who to trust with the answer.

How the Celebrity Format Works

The rules are the ones longtime fans know, with a few modern wrinkles. The pair climbs a 15-question money ladder toward $1 million, and every dollar they win goes to charity rather than into anyone's pocket. Three lifelines are available: the classic 50/50, which removes two wrong answers; Phone-a-Friend, which gives the players a timed call to anyone they choose; and Ask the Host, the Kimmel-era addition that lets the contestants put the question to the man holding the cards. Once a pair passes a safe-haven threshold, that money is locked in, which is why a wrong answer near the top still sends a big check to charity. The difference on this night was that Affleck and Ding did not need the safety net.

The Climb to $500,000

The early rounds moved quickly. The pair identified a krater as an ancient Greek bowl for $4,000, knew that Pope Leo XIV had worn a Chicago White Sox cap for $8,000, credited Treasure Island with popularizing "X marks the spot" for $16,000, and recognized that Billie Eilish quotes René Descartes in "Therefore I Am" for $64,000. The $125,000 question, about a poem written to mark the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge, went to chief engineer Joseph Strauss.

The $500,000 question is where the night got tense. The clue asked which achievement happened just two months after a New York Times article predicted it would take "1 million to 10 million years." Affleck and Ding burned their 50/50, which left "first airplane flight" and "splitting the atom." They went with the Wright brothers, and the Times' famously wrong 1903 editorial did the rest.

The Million-Dollar Question

Then came the turkeys. The question: "In an annual Thanksgiving tradition, all but which of these have been the names of turkeys pardoned by a U.S. president?" The four options were Peanut Butter & Jelly, Tater & Tot, Mac & Cheese, and Spaghetti & Meatball.

With two lifelines left, the pair first used Ask the Host. Affleck's reasoning was hard to argue with: "This is the person who would actually be paying attention to every pardoned turkey. This is the best person in the world to ask this question to!" Kimmel, who admitted he was not certain, guessed Spaghetti & Meatball, then added, "And if I'm wrong, I'm so sorry."

They tried to confirm it with a Phone-a-Friend call to one of Ding's longtime trivia teammates, but the clock ran out before they got a clear answer. So they trusted the host. Spaghetti & Meatball was correct, the confetti fell, and Kimmel confessed, "I have such a stomachache right now."

Where the Money Goes

Affleck co-founded the Eastern Congo Initiative with Whitney Williams as the first U.S.-based advocacy and grant-making organization focused entirely on the people of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. On air, Affleck pointed to the region's ongoing Ebola crisis as one of the reasons the money matters right now. Under the show's celebrity format, the $1 million is split between the two players' designated charities, and Ding directed his share to the same cause.

How Rare Is a Million-Dollar Win?

Rarer than you might think. By our count, this was only the 18th time the top prize has been claimed in the American show's 27-year history, and only the fifth in Kimmel's revival:

  • 1999 to 2001 (Regis Philbin era): John Carpenter, Dan Blonsky, Joe Trela, Bob House, Kim Hunt, David Goodman, Kevin Olmstead ($2.18 million, still the record), Bernie Cullen, and Ed Toutant.
  • 2003 to 2009 (syndicated and specials): Kevin Smith, Nancy Christy, Robert Essig on Super Millionaire, and Sam Murray in the 2009 tournament.
  • 2020 to 2026 (Jimmy Kimmel revival): David Chang (2020), Ike and Alan Barinholtz (2024), Ken Jennings and Matt Damon (2025), Oscar Nuñez and Kate Flannery (2025), and now Jamie Ding and Ben Affleck.

Notice the pattern in the modern era. Three of the last four winning pairs included a Jeopardy! champion or a professional-grade trivia mind. If you are a celebrity booking this show, the lesson is clear: bring a ringer.

What's Next for Millionaire

The celebrity season continues on Wednesday nights on ABC, with episodes streaming next day on Hulu. For the full schedule and where to stream past seasons, see our Millionaire how-to-watch guide, and if you want to see how Ding built his streak, start with our look at Jeopardy!'s greatest players of all time.

Sources: NBC News, Deseret News, Variety, 6abc, Wikipedia (top prize winners)