Alex Trebek Gets Real About Experiencing Hair Loss From Chemotherapy: ‘This Is Not the Real Me’

Since Alex Trebek started hosting Jeopardy! in 1984, we haven’t failed to notice his amazingly quaffed hair! But since he announced he’ll be returning to the game show for season 36 while battling stage IV pancreatic cancer and undergoing chemotherapy to fight it, fans can’t stop wondering if the hair he is sporting is the genuine thing or not.

“What the challenge for Jeopardy! viewers is right now is to figure out, ‘Is that Alex’s real hair or is that a full hair piece?’ Because they all know that when you start chemo you lose your hair, so which is it?” Alex, 78, tells CBS Sunday Morning‘s Jane Pauley in an interview set to air on May 12. He takes a breath and says, “This is not the real me.”

Alex added that although we’ve seen him rocking a hairpiece lately — and doing it well — he’ll take his real hair over the fake version any day. “On air I’m told that there were times when the hair piece looked better than my real hair,” he revealed. “We have the summer months off so hopefully my own hair will grow back ’cause I like my own hair.”

The next season of Jeopardy! will premiere this fall, so don’t try to tell Alex that he needs to slow down or should consider retiring. “I’m not going to stop now,” he recently said on Twitter. “So, despite what you may have heard, I’m feeling good. I’m continuing with my therapy and we — by we, the staff — is already working on our next season, the 36th year of Jeopardy!. So I look forward to seeing you once again in September with all kinds of good stuff.”

Besides the “good stuff” Alex has yet to give any hints about what fans can expect to see in the new season of Jeopardy!. Knowing him, though, he will make the show anything but boring. After all, he has his latest Emmy Award to prove it.

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