Drew Carey and The Price is Right Contestant Shirley Stokes on April 3, 2025
The Price is Right/YouTube

Drew Carey joked around with a The Price Is Right contestant who was trying to win a car, but when his joke started to look like it was coming true, the host started to panic.

On the Thursday, April 3 episode, a contestant named Shirley Stokes bid on a French door refrigerator with an ice and water dispenser. She picked $2,351, which was only one dollar more than her fellow competitor’s bid. Stokes won since the retail price was $2,499.

She got to come on stage to play a game and meet Carey. Stokes played Pocket Change to try and win a new SUV. The contestant has to try and correctly guess the price of the car from the numbers that are on the board. TPIR gave her the first number, which was a two. Stokes had five numbers left to pick from, but she only needed to pick four. Every time she was right, she got to pick an envelope off the board, which had change amounts in them.

Carey gave her one to start off with, which was $0.25. She needed the extra change because every time she would pick a wrong number, the price of the car would go up from $0.25 in $0.25 increments.

Stokes picked four for the next number and was correct, so she picked an envelope. The next number she picked was three, which was also right, resulting in another envelope. However, Stokes picked nine next, which was wrong. The price of the car went up to $0.50, and she didn’t get to pick an envelope.

When the game show contestant selected six, she was right and only had one more number to pick. Stokes picked nine for the last number and got two more envelopes.

“All you need is $0.25 more to buy the car from us. You have four cards here. You would have to be the unluckiest person in the building right now to not win this car,” Carey said.

The host opened the first envelope, which only had $0.05 in it, for a total of $0.30. The second envelope had $0 in it. “Oh, come on. I was only joking around,” Carey said as he pulled out the card. “I was only kidding. I swear to God. I thought it would be the first card.”

However, Carey opened the third card, and it had $0.25 in it, giving her $0.55. She won the car despite Carey’s joke and ran over to see it closer. Stokes did not make it to the Showcase.