A former winner of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has made a huge admission 25 years later.

Fans will remember John Carpenter delivering the ‘coldest sentence ever spoken’ when he appeared on the show back in 1999.

The tax agent took part in the first ever season of the American version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, hosted by the late Regis Philbin.

Not only did Carpenter make it all the way to the last, million dollar question, he did it without using a single lifeline.

Watch the incredible scenes below:

For the final question, he was asked to provide the correct name of the US President who had appeared on the TV series Laugh-In.

The four options provided were Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

That’s when Carpenter decided to use his lifeline, but not for the reason you think.

Logically, you’d presume it being be a smart move to use a lifeline for the most important question, but instead, the American opted to deliver a moment of pure confidence.

After calling up his dad, a very smiley Carpenter said: “I don’t really need your help. I just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna win the million dollars.”

Without much hesitation, he delivered the right answer, which was President Nixon.

Now, in an update 25 years on, Carpenter has spoke about the relief he had after answering the final question correctly.

“I would say the thing that I remember the most about the moment when I won was just, you know, ‘Thank goodness I was right,’ because if I had been wrong after doing that, just I don’t know what would have happened in my life,” he said.

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? winner has made a huge admission 25 years later (Facebook/Who Wants To Be A Millionaire)

“It was a, you know, a cultural touchstone, you know, back then and it kept going for many, many years.

“I like to think that I had a little bit to do with that.

“I mean, I did buy a car, but I needed one anyway. I was just driving around in an old Honda Del Sol with some body damage at the time. You know, things are, you know, more comfortable.

“I mean, it’s not like I could live on it forever. Still kept my job, but it was just good to have.”

To this day, viewers are still amazed, as one TikTok user commented: “Coldest sentence ever spoken.”

While another replied: “What a flex.”

A third also added: “Bro just smiled,” as a fourth wrote: “You can tell exactly when he realised he was going to win.”

You’re sat under a load of bright lights, Jeremy Clarkson is questioning you and you’ve got money at stake – things are already feeling pretty tense.

But then you ring your wife and some random bloke answers the phone? Now that’s enough to send your head spinning.

This kind of scenario would obviously only happen on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or in some weird interrogation nightmare, I guess.

And it’s what went down for this contestant after he used his Phone a Friend to get some help from his wife, leaving Clarkson stunned when a man answered.

Contestant JP Hogan called his partner while appearing on the ITV show back in 2020.

The science teacher from Lincoln had made some good headway so far but hit a brick wall when a confusing question could have bagged him £16,000 if answered correctly.

Clarkson asked: “Which of these days is part of the weekend in Germany?”

Hogan had four options to choose from: Donnerstag, Mittwoch, Sonntag, or Dienstag. (It was Sonntag, by the way).

And seeing as though he teaches science rather than languages, he was left pretty stumped.

But he had a lifeline: “My wife’s auntie has lived in Germany for over 50 years, my wife’s been there a few times.

“My wife, who at different times would probably have been in the audience, is at home as one of my Phone a Friends.”

Making the most of that, he called up other half Elizabeth in the hope she could assist him.

The dial tone started ringing out in the studio while Clarkson quickly asked if Hogan would like him to fill her in on how far he had gotten, but the pair quickly silenced themselves when they heard a male voice on the other end.

After awkwardly listening to a few unintelligible words that a male voice uttered, the Top Gear star told the player: “That was a man who just answered your phone…

“Relax, relax! It could be completely innocent.”

The crowd, Clarkson and Hogan then waited with bated breath as they gave Elizabeth’s phone another try – only for her to innocently answer: “Hello?”

Well, that’s awkward (ITV)

She confirmed that she had some company after the host enquired.

One social media user said: “Break time question: who was the man that answered the phone when JP phoned his wife? #WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire.”

But someone else realised that there was actually quite an innocent explanation behind the Phone a Friend fiasco.

They explained: “The man answering was literally an automated voice saying ‘sorry there is no service’. Jeremy was JOKING about an affair.”

Others also speculated that when Elizabeth said someone was with her, she meant that someone from the show was supervising her to make sure she didn’t cheat and Google the answer for Hogan.

Luckily, the incident didn’t throw the contestant off his game, and he ended up leaving the show with £64,000.

“I would’ve known that,” “Come on mate, everyone knows that…” “How the hell did they get that right?” It’s not a bit of quizzing telly if you aren’t shouting through it from your sofa.

But one show that stumps a lot of us, or convinces us we’re geniuses, is of course Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Viewers are often left baffled by the question choices or angry over ‘fixed’ claims and back in 2018, many were shocked by a contestant’s insane reason for why he knew the answer to a £125,000 question.

Gareth Kendall had the audience gasping while he mulled over the answer to: “The ruins of the Urquhart Castle stand on the banks of which loch?”

The bloke had already discussed with Jeremy Clarkson about being an amputee as a result of a car crash in 2012.

And he had already gone viral once before, after sharing a photo of a tattoo on his leg reading: “One foot in the grave,” with a finger pointing at his prosthetic leg.

His terrifying ordeal ended up helping him out years after his crash as he responded to that £125,000 question by saying: “I know this, and I know this because I lost my leg there.”

Turns out, Kendall had actually been in that area on the day of his crash.

While the audience gasped in response he reassured: “Not in the castle! In Inverness.

“If I remember rightly, on the loch, there’s a little inlet with a castle ruins there, so I’ll go Loch Ness.”

And of course, he was correct and took his total to the safety zone.

Clarkson said: “Finally, this is the best show ever. This will improve the fixtures and fittings in your cafe. You crashed there? That’s a remarkable piece of good fortune.”

He lost his leg following the crash. (ITV)

Viewers were buzzing for the bloke as he took home a decent chunk of cash as they wrote on X it was ‘class’ and called him a ‘legend’.

Others wrote: “What a great contestant Gareth on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and to get that question on Loch Ness based on his own experience has changed his life for a second time.”

As another said it was ‘far too tense’ but ‘well played’.

“Well done Gareth you deserved to win on Who Wants to be a Millionaire especially when the answer was where you had your accident,” a final user wrote.

Seeing someone win a game show is always a spectacle to watch, seeing as almost every contestant fails to walk away with the reward.

However, one man managed to walk away with the grand prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in the coolest way ever.

John Carpenter, an IRS tax agent, was a contestant on the US version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in November 1999, and managed to make it to the final round without using any of his lifelines.

The three lifelines on the show are: 50:50, Phone-a-Friend and Ask the Audience.

Hosted at the time by the late Regis Philbin, he read out the last of the night: “Which of these U.S Presidents appeared on the television series ‘Laugh-In?'”

The options were Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

Carpenter looked confident as soon as the answers were read out, with a smirk plastered across his face.

Despite looking like he knew the answer, he then proceeded to call his father, with the audience left shocked that he had finally needed to use a lifeline.

However, this was not the case at all.

As soon as his Father picked up the phone, Carpenter said: “I don’t really need your help, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to win the million dollars.” His cool quip was met with a sea of applause and cheers from the crowd.

When reflecting on his win years later, he said: “I would have felt like a fraud if I used a lifeline for those things, but I said to myself that I was going to use a lifeline no matter what on the last question, because I didn’t want to be thought of as that guy,”

“But when I saw the question, I thought, ‘My father is going to know I know this.’ So, I’m a bit of a smart a** and it came to me to just tell him I was going to win.”

The result made him the first winner of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in any country or edition of the show.

Since winning, Carpenter got to appear on SNL, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and even got to reunite with Philbin on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.

In one of the most confident – some would say cocky – moves in game show history, Carpenter definitely came out victorious.