Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider opens up about the details of her engagement to Genevieve Davis. (YouTube/Good Morning America/Jeopardy!)
Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider has gushed about the romantic details of how her fiancée popped the question.
During her 40-game win streak, Schneider became the most successful female contestant in the show’s history and the first woman to break over $1 million – ultimately taking home almost $1.4 million in earnings. She is also the first trans contestant to compete on the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.
Just a few weeks after leaving the quiz show, Schneider revealed that she was engaged to her partner Genevieve Davis in a heartfelt post on social media.
Now, Schneider has opened up about the special way in which Davis popped the question. The trans icon told ABC7 News that she had been expecting her partner to propose at some point during February.
She remarked that Valentine’s Day is “actually our anniversary of when we started dating” so she thought the proposal might land sometime near then.
But Davis managed to surprise Schneider during a seemingly normal Tuesday night while the couple was hanging out with friends.
Schneider said her partner suggested they invite some of their friends over for a seemingly normal “happy hour at our place”.
“I didn’t really think anything of it,” Schneider said. “I was like ‘I’ve got a lot going on’.”
During the evening with friends, Schneider left the room for a couple of minutes. When she returned, Schneider found the room completely transformed and saw Davis down on one knee.
“I came out, and she was on one knee,” Schneider said. “Our friends had brought balloons that they had hidden, and one of them was filming it.”
While she was “shocked” at the moment, Schneider said “yes”. Amy Schneider added that she is “really excited” about her future wedding day as marriage has “always” been in the cards for her.
“I’ve always been somebody that in my relationships – whether romantic or just personal – I’m all in or nothing,” Schneider said. “Marriage was always part of my plans.”
People recently revealed that the former engineering manager is one of the outlet’s Women Changing the World in 2022.
Schneider told the outlet that spent over a decade applying to become a contestant on Jeopardy! She believed that one of the reasons behind why she “finally did get selected” was that she had started living her truth.
“I do think part of the reason I finally did get selected was that I had transitioned, and I was living my real identity,” she said. “Looking back, I realised that I was hiding so much of myself. I was a very closed-off person before that.”
Amy Schneider said she decided to “focus on being myself” while on the show because she knew she would “feel better, regardless of the reaction”.
Schneider quickly became a fan-favourite after her first episode aired, and she said she’s received constant messages of support from the LGBT+ community. Thinking back on her time on the quiz show, Schneider said she was glad that she didn’t “present an idealised version of myself”.
“If I had, it would’ve set a standard like ‘Oh, well, yeah, everybody likes Amy because she’s … whatever’,” she said. “It feels really good to say ‘No, that was just me’.”