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Ben Affleck Won the $1 Million Jackpot on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” — Yes, for Real

Updated 3 weeks ago, July 30, 2026

Ben Affleck and “Jeopardy!” legend Jamie Ding answered all 15 questions to win $1 million for charity. The final answer came down to a hunch from host Jimmy Kimmel about which Thanksgiving turkeys a president had never pardoned.

The $1 million goes to the Eastern Congo Initiative, the nonprofit Affleck co-founded with Whitney Williams in 2010.

Affleck, 53, and Ding cleared all 15 questions on the July 29 episode of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” with Kimmel hosting. Ding, who won 31 straight games and $882,605 on “Jeopardy!” this spring, told USA TODAY the two had never met before the show. “We were kind of an arranged marriage,” he joked.

Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding on the set of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire — Ben Affleck and Jamie Ding appear on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” during the July 29, 2026 episode. Photo by Disney.

The final question asked which name had never belonged to a turkey pardoned by a U.S. president: Peanut Butter & Jelly, Tater & Tot, Mac & Cheese, or Spaghetti & Meatball. Kimmel had a hunch it was Spaghetti & Meatball, since he does a bit about the pardons every year. “I could see me adding a big bowl in Donald Trump‘s hands and him slurping up the spaghetti and meatballs,” he said. The pair also phoned Ding’s longtime trivia partner Stephen Morrison, who ran out of time before he could answer, so they locked in Kimmel’s guess and risked $468,000. They were right.

Affleck had already carried the team through the $500,000 question, which asked what happened just two months after a New York Times article predicted it wouldn’t for “one million to ten million years.” He landed on the first airplane flight. “I only remember this because there was a time in my life when I spent a lot of time looking up examples of the press getting things wrong,” he said.