Manuela Arbelaez became the most popular model on The Price Is Right after she accidentally gave away a brand new car on the show.

Manuela Arbelaez ‘Price Is Right’ Blooper

Contestant Andrea had three chances to guess the price tag of a brand new Hyundai Sonata SE out of five different choices. After her first guess was declared incorrect, Arbelaez removed the card choice and then on instinct removed the one below to reveal the winning price tag – $21,960.

Arbelaez tried to replace the price tag once she realized her mistake, but Andrea was too quick and declared herself a winner as host Drew Carey laughed gleefully. “Congratulations! Manuela just gave you a car,” Carey exclaimed while Arbelaez cowered behind the set.

Instead of stopping the game and re-taping, Price is Right producers decided to keep the misstep in the show and give Andrea the car. And Arbelaez appears to have a good sense of humor about the whole thing, posting jokes on Twitter.

For those worried, Arbelaez said that Carey and the show producers were incredibly supportive and did not ask that the payment for the car be taken out of her paycheck.

Manuela Arbelaez Talks About Her “Expensive Mistake”

Arbelaez went on Inside Edition to talk about the incident, and opened up about what led to the on-air mistake. “I was on autopilot. After I heard the buzz I thought, okay, the game was over. What I didn’t realize was that she had two more chances,” Arbelaez said.

When a contestant gets the wrong answer and the game is over, models are meant to reveal the correct answer, and Arbelaez, who has worked on the show for six years, simply got ahead of herself.

Arbelaez may be able to laugh off the blooper, but she admitted that at the time she thought she was about to be fired.

“I was mortified because I thought A: this is my last day of work and B: it’s going to be taken out of my paycheck every week. I thought that was it for me,” Arbelaez revealed.

“I obviously made a very expensive mistake. But, I made somebody very happy,” she added.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.