“The Price is Right” Model, Manuela Arbelaez, Mistakenly Gave Away a Hyundai Sonata to a Lucky Contestant
The Price is Right model Manuela Arbelaez thought she would have to come on down to the unemployment line after she mistakenly revealed the price of a new car on the game show.
The 26-year-old model said in an interview Friday that she lost her train of thought while exposing the answers in a game that involves correctly choosing a vehicle's value among five oversized price tags. Arbelaez accidently unmasked the correct $21,960 price after the contestant's first pick.
The clip of Arbelaez's flub made the social media rounds online after the episode featuring her now infamous slip-up aired Thursday. It has received more than 10 million views on the show's official YouTube channel.
The mortified assistant blames her antsy hands and scatterbrain for the slip-up she calls the "biggest mistake ever in game show history."
"I wanted to go in a wormhole and disappear," Manuela Arbelaez, 26, told the Daily News. "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."
According to New York Daily News, the Colombian model said: "It's pretty heavy," said Arbelaez, who broke down crying on the show. "It's the most embarrassing, biggest mistake ever in game show history - or this is one of the top five."
The six-year game show veteran's instincts kicked in when she heard the buzzer go off. The doomed noise usually gives her the go-ahead to reveal all the remaining tags.
Arbelaez said she wasn't reprimanded for the error, and $21,960 wasn't deducted from her paycheque.
Arbelaez said she'll have to live with the astonishing error for the rest of her life, but she's taking the humiliation in stride.