Vanna White Reveals Where Her Relationship with Pat Sajak Stands Following His Wheel of Fortune Exit

• Vanna White spread out about whether or not she’s nonetheless buddies with Pat Sajak after his retirement from Wheel of Fortune in June
• “We’re friends,” White stated of her present standing with Sajak
• White and the previous host will reunite for the 5th season of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, which they’re going to co-host in combination

It’s been just about a yr since Pat Sajak stated good-bye to Wheel of Fortune, and Vanna White is opening up about what their off-screen courting seems like now.

Though Sajak, 78, made his emotional go out from the day by day sport display in June 2024, White, 68, just lately instructed TV Insider that her former co-host and longtime pal is “still in my life.”

“I still see him! We’re friends,” White stated within the interview, printed on April 24, including that the previous Wheel of Fortune co-hosts “have dinner” in combination every so often.

“Yeah,” she confident lovers, “he’s still in my life.”

And when Sajak, who hosted the display for 41 years from 1981 to 2024, reunites with White, who stepped into her now iconic function in 1982, it feels the similar because it at all times has, she instructed TV Insider.

“It’s like slipping into something very comfortable,” she stated. “I mean that in the best possible way. It’s just comfortable.”

But when Sajak first left, White recalled, it wasn’t convenience, however reasonably despair, that she skilled.

“It was sad for me in a way because [at the time] I didn’t know what the future held,” she recalled to TV Insider, including, “It was ending an unbelievable era!”

As for her present co-host Ryan Seacrest — who took over Sajak’s co-hosting tasks following his retirement, making his professional Wheel of Fortune debut in September 2024 — White thinks he took the appropriate way, and it has since paid off.

“Ryan did his homework. He rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed,” she instructed TV Insider. “He also said to me, ‘I am not replacing Pat Sajak because no one could – ever. I am just stepping in.’ That made me feel good because, as Ryan said, he’s just stepping in – he’s not trying to prove anything.”

But, for the ones lacking White and Sajak’s dynamic — constructed over 4 many years of co-hosting aspect via aspect — the duo will as soon as once more be reunited on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, which Sajak has persevered internet hosting regardless of his retirement from the unique sport display, TV Insider stories.

Season 5 of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune premieres on April 30.

Last yr, after his first couple of weeks at the back of the wheel, Seacrest, 50, opened as much as PEOPLE about how White helped make his transition to co-host as seamless as conceivable.

“She stated, ‘Just move available in the market and feature amusing and be your self,’ ” the famous person instructed PEOPLE in September.

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“The good thing about this game show is that you get to be yourself,” he added on the time. “It has a bit looseness to it. It does not need to be so strict and so formatted. It has the ones moments of actual lifestyles and humanity.”

Seacrest stated that he and White have lengthy had an off-screen repertoire, having “known each other for two decades.” The duo-turned-Wheel of Fortune co-hosts are “friends,” he instructed PEOPLE, “which has made it really, really nice and comfortable.”

Wheel of Fortune airs Mondays at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.