TWO 1% CLUB CONTESTANTS WALKED AWAY FROM £100,000 — THEN LEE MACK REVEALED THE FINAL QUESTION THEY COULD HAVE BEATEN
Lee Mack was left genuinely surprised when two The 1% Club finalists turned down the chance to play for £100,000 — only to discover moments later that they may have been capable of solving the final question.
Kyle and Sarah had battled their way through the ITV quiz and made it all the way to the final round, where they faced one of the show’s biggest decisions.
With £10,000 to split between them already secured, they could either take the money or risk walking away with nothing for the chance to win the huge £100,000 jackpot.
Given how well they had played, Lee expected at least one of them to take the gamble.
He was wrong.
‘I WASN’T EXPECTING THAT’
As the studio waited for their decision, both contestants switched off their lights.
That meant they had chosen to take the money.
Lee immediately admitted he was caught off guard.
“Okay, both of your lights are off which means that you’re both taking your share of £10,000. Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,” he said.
He then confessed that he had expected Kyle to risk his share while Sarah took the money she had already earmarked for a trip to Disneyland.
“I’m not going to lie, I thought that Kyle was going to risk it, I thought that Sarah was going to go to Disney with her money, but you were going to risk it. Why didn’t you?”
Kyle simply replied: “I’m not a big risker.”
Lee could not resist teasing him.
“You’re not a big risker? Would you have thought differently if you’d still had the grand?”
SARAH HAD HER EYE ON DISNEYLAND
Sarah had previously spoken about her dream of going to Disneyland, making the decision to protect her money understandable.
She admitted she had only guessed the previous question and did not want to push her luck.
“I just sort of guessed the last question so I didn’t want to push my luck,” she explained.
Lee praised both finalists for making it so far — but then delivered the cruelest part of the reveal.
“You’ve done very, very well,” he told them.
“Obviously it would be ridiculously irritating for me to now show you the question and you know you would have got it, so. Of course we’ll show it.”
And that was exactly what happened.
THE £100,000 QUESTION
The final 1% question asked:
“Why is FOQZ the odd one out in these sets of letters?”
The contestants were given four options:
- BCDEGPTV
- AJK
- FOQZ
- IY
The challenge was to work out what connected the different groups of letters — and why FOQZ did not belong.
Kyle and Sarah had already decided to take their £5,000 each.
Now they were about to find out whether they had made the right call.
‘WOULD YOU HAVE GOT IT IN 30 SECONDS?’
Lee couldn’t resist rubbing salt into the wound.
“Just out of interest, would you have got it in 30 seconds? I’m slightly hoping you wouldn’t. Feel free to say if you think you’ve got it,” he joked.
Kyle admitted: “No idea.”
Sarah, meanwhile, seemed perfectly happy with her decision.
“I feel better for taking [the money],” she said.
But then someone from the audience raised their hand.
One of the other 1% Club players believed they had cracked it.
“Hi Lee, so BCDEGPTV all rhyme, AJK rhyme, IY rhyme, FOQZ are all different,” they explained.
THE ANSWER THAT COULD HAVE CHANGED EVERYTHING
Lee confirmed the contestant had got it right.
“Let’s have a look, that’s the right answer. The other sets of letters rhyme with each other.
“F, O, Q and Z do not rhyme. Well done, and well done to you two for taking the money. You still take home a share of £10,000.”
The answer was therefore hidden in the way the letters themselves are pronounced.
The other groups contained letters whose names rhyme with one another, while F, O, Q and Z broke that pattern.
It was exactly the kind of deceptively simple logic test the show is famous for.
And for Kyle and Sarah, there was one final twist: they would never know whether they could have found it inside the crucial 30 seconds.
Instead, they left with £5,000 each — safe money in their pockets, but with the tantalising possibility that they had just walked away from a life-changing £100,000.
