Where's Amy? 'Jeopardy' Champ Sidelined as Regular Episodes Pre-empted by Professor's Tournament

Those who have tuned into "Jeopardy" this week hoping to see if Amy Schneider could extend her winning streak are likely disappointed. Regular Jeopardy episodes are on hold for two weeks while the show hosts a special Professor's Tournament hosted by Mayim Bialik, with 15 professors competing to take home a cash prize of $100,000.

Schneider, the first trans contestant to make it to the Tournament of Champions, has had an amazing run over her 13-day streak. She has amassed $536,400, which makes her the fourth-winningest Jeopardy contestant in a regular season. She also amassed that amount in the shortest period of time of any contestant.

On Twitter, Schneider addressed her absence, writing, "I'll still be online during the next two weeks, although probably a bit less than I have been (I'm sure my job would appreciate that lol). I've got a few ideas for what I might do, stay tuned!sc"

In.a related tweet, she encouraged viewers ta join her in watching the Professor's Tournament.

Over the past weekend, the Jeopardy Twitter feed posted a reminder to viewers that the Professor's Tournament will continue through December 17. Schneider returns to the show on December 20.

In the interim, Schneider has opened up about her personal life. "The Dayton, Ohio, native is using the time to allow her more than 14,000 Twitter followers get to know her better, revealing in a lengthy thread that she was once married to a woman before transitioning," reports�Newsweek.

Schneider shared she continued to explore her long-held passion for theater performance after college, writing: "I met my wife while doing Taming of the Shrew. She was playing the titular shrew, and I could make some joke about omens, since we ended up divorcing, but that's unfair to a woman I loved for many years, and we're still friends."

She described her ex as "a theater major, and interested in standup comedy, so we needed to move to a major city for her to pursue that." She added: "We visited some friends who were attending Berkeley, and fell in love with the Bay Area. So we moved to Oakland in 2009, and I, for one, never want to leave!"

She also said that 2016 was a "pivotal year" for her. "In 2016, my father passed away, Kevin Durant joined the [Golden State] Warriors, my wife and I split up, I realized I was trans, and [Donald] Trump got elected. It was quite a year!"

Adding in a subsequent tweet: "Now, when I say I realized I was trans in 2016, I'm simplifying a process that in some ways had been going on my whole life, and certainly since 2011 or so, but 2016 was when I finally realized that I was living a lie, and began to let my true self show."

In�an earlier interview with the publication published in November, Schneider revealed that she observes June 30, 2017, as the date she started openly living as her true self.

In that interview she said that she started auditioning for "Jeopardy" while living in Ohio in the first decade of the century. "The reality is that for the first few years of that, when I was trying out, I was, as far as any of us knew, a standard white guy. And there's just more competition for those slots on 'Jeopardy!' "

She continued: "They're making a TV show, they don't want everybody to look the same, and looked a lot like many of the other contestants, and I think that definitely made it a little tougher for me at that time. I would have got on eventually – I was never gonna stop trying!"

Schneider has been quick to add that she's not the first trans contestant on the show. "FYI, I am not the first out trans person to appear on Jeopardy (a few friends have asked)," wrote Schneider. "There have been a handful before, including one, Kate Freeman, who was the first out trans champion on 12/16/20. My thanks to all of them for blazing the trail!"