Alex Trebek Says Love Has Kept Him Alive

Alex Trebek has been putting up a brave fight against his stage 4 pancreatic cancer, but the "Jeopardy!" host has admitted that he probably would not be around today if it were not for the love of his wife, Jean. In an interview with People this week, the 79-year-old described how she helped him since his diagnosis in March 2019.

"She's kept me alive," he said. "If it weren’t for Jean, I’d have put myself out of this a long time ago."

The couple recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and are still madly in love, even after all these years. In his newly released memoir, "The Answer Is...: Reflections On My Life," Alex recalls the day they met in 1988.

He was 47 at the time and had been hosting "Jeopardy!" for four years. Jean was 23 and working with one of Alex's friends as a bookkeeper. It was love at first sight.

"With Jean it just happened," Alex wrote, according to People. "Sometimes you look at something, you look at someone, and you know. I mean, you’ve heard stories of people who meet and decide within half an hour; I knew this was going to be the person I’d end up with. With Jeanie that’s how it was. I wasn’t looking for love. But I recognized at a gut level that here was someone who was going to complete me as a human being."

Two years after that fateful day, Alex and Jean were married. It has not always been easy for them amid Alex's cancer battle but the couple are stronger than ever. In his book, Alex shares that they are soul mates destined to be together forever.

"I’ve got [a] framed image. Jeanie gave it to me," he wrote. "It’s a line from our favorite movie, Wuthering Heights: 'Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.' That’s the way I look at our relationship. We are one soul in two bodies."

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