Louis CK's Jeopardy! Win Elevates Obscure Charity

Comedian donates $50K to Fistula Foundation
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 20, 2016 6:19 AM CDT
Louis CK's Jeopardy! Win Elevates Obscure Charity
Louis C.K. arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills in February.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

A little-known women's charity based in California had a welcome problem this week: The website of the Fistula Foundation crashed because of an influx of visitors, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The reason? Louis CK played on behalf of the group in a celebrity Jeopardy! match that aired Wednesday and ended up donating his $50,000 in winnings to it. The foundation helps women suffering from an obstetric fistula—"a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder that is caused by prolonged obstructed labor, leaving a woman incontinent," the website explains. Surgery can easily fix it, and it's no longer a problem in the US, but it remains a major issue for women in low-income countries.

"They're modern-day lepers," the charity's CEO tells USA Today. The money will go toward training doctors and providing surgeries for more women, she says. Louis CK himself described the charity to host Alex Trebek "as a group of people who help women in poor countries who've been injured in childbirth, and it helps them get the medical attention that they need and get them back on their feet." To which Trebek responded, "That's not a well-known charity. Good for you." On the show, the comedian defeated Kate Bolduan of CNN and Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, notes E! Online. (Check out 23 hilarious celebrity game-show fails.)

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