A recent episode of ITV's The 1% Club saw all five finalists fail to answer the final question, resulting in the £97,000 prize fund going unclaimed. The episode, which first aired in May 2025, featured host Lee Mack presenting the supposedly 1% question that left contestants baffled.
The question read: "What new word links the capitalised words below? My SON TED ate raw FOOD and got SICK, then went to BED with me by his SIDE." Contestants offered guesses such as "you", "step", and "nest", but none arrived at the correct answer, which was revealed to be "sea".
Lee Mack explained that the word "sea" could be inserted before each capitalised word to form new words: season, seated, seafood, seasick, seabed, and seaside. The puzzle drew mixed reactions on social media, with some viewers claiming they solved it instantly while others criticised the wording.
One viewer wrote: "Got it straight away for once haha." However, another fumed: "This is a dumb one. The sentence read as a whole doesn't hold any clue as to what the answer may be and ends up being misleading."
Despite the controversy, ITV has confirmed that The 1% Club will return for three more series, with Lee Mack continuing as host. Mack commented: "I'm delighted that ITV have given us three more series to discover Great British clever clogs."
