Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - Lowest Scores

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The first contestant ever to win nothing was John Davidson from the British version, failing on his fifth question. Robby Roseman, from the American version, was the first contestant to fail on the first question, and Richard Hatch, in a celebrity special on the Australian version became their first A$0 winner, failing on his fourth question. New Zealand's first contestant ever, Courtney Washington, also became their first NZ$0 winner, failing on her fourth question. In March 2007, Dutch contestant Peter Lindhout got his fourth question, worth €250, wrong and went home with €0.

In 2006, a screenshot from the UKGameshows.com site was digitally altered and used in a piece on the satire site BS News. The image was also widely circulated as an email in which it was purported to show a contestant named Kathy Evans failing to answer her $100 question correctly after using all three lifelines because she was too skeptical of the assistance that was given. The image was actually a digitally altered screenshot of real-life contestant Fiona Wheeler on the original UK version answering a different question from a higher tier.

The hoax may have been inspired by an infamous moment from the French version of the show, in which a contestant requested help from the audience on a €3,000 question which asked which celestial body orbited the earth - the Sun, the Moon, Mars or Venus. The audience provided the answer of "the Sun", and the player ended up leaving with €1,500 as a result. The hoax also borrows elements from other infamous moments of numerous unlucky contestants on the U.S. version, all of whom won nothing after giving a wrong answer to one of the first five questions.