Faizan Zaki overcomes a shocking, self-inflicted flub and wins the
Scripps National Spelling Bee
[May 30, 2025]
By BEN NUCKOLS
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Faizan Zaki's enthusiasm for spelling nearly got
the better of him. Ultimately, his joyful approach made him the Scripps
National Spelling Bee champion.
The favorite entering the bee after his runner-up finish last year —
during which he never misspelled a word in a conventional spelling
round, only to lose a lightning-round tiebreaker that he didn't practice
for — the shaggy-haired Faizan wore the burden of expectations lightly,
sauntering to the microphone in a black hoodie and spelling his words
with casual glee.
Throughout Thursday night's finals, the 13-year-old from Allen, Texas,
looked like a champion in waiting. Then he nearly threw it away. But
even a shocking moment of overconfidence couldn't prevent him from
seizing the title of best speller in the English language.
With the bee down to three spellers, Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane
missed their words back-to-back, putting Faizan two words away from
victory. The first was “commelina,” but instead of asking the requisite
questions — definition, language of origin — to make sure he knew it,
Faizan let his showman's instincts take over.
“K-A-M,” he said, then stopped himself. “OK, let me do this. Oh, shoot!”
“Just ring the bell,” he told head judge Mary Brooks, who obliged.
“So now you know what happens,” Brooks said, and the other two spellers
returned to the stage.
Later, standing next to the trophy with confetti at his feet, Faizan
said: “I'm definitely going to be having nightmares about that tonight.”
Even pronouncer Jacques Bailly tried to slow Faizan down before his
winning word, “eclaircissement,” but Faizan didn't ask a single question
before spelling it correctly, and he pumped his fists and collapsed to
the stage after saying the final letter.
The bee celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and Faizan may be
the first champion who's remembered more for a word he got wrong than
one he got right.
“I think he cared too much about his aura,” said Bruhat Soma, Faizan’s
buddy who beat him in the “spell-off” tiebreaker last year.
Faizan had a more nuanced explanation: After not preparing for the
spell-off last year, he overcorrected, emphasizing speed during his
study sessions.
Although Bruhat was fast last year when he needed to be, he followed the
familiar playbook for champion spellers: asking thorough questions,
spelling slowly and metronomically, showing little emotion. Those are
among the hallmarks of well-coached spellers, and Faizan had three
coaches: Scott Remer, Sam Evans and Sohum Sukhantankar.
None of them could turn Faizan into a robot on stage.
“He's crazy. He's having a good time, and he's doing what he loves,
which is spelling,” Evans said.
Said Zaki Anwar, Faizan's father: “He's the GOAT. I actually believe
that. He's really good, man. He's been doing it for so long, and he
knows the dictionary in and out.”
A thrilling centennial
After last year's bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the
spell-off, Scripps tweaked the competition rules, giving judges more
leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker.
The nine finalists delivered.
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Faizan Zaki, 13, of Dallas, reacts as he wins the 2025 Scripps
National Spelling Bee, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP
Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
 During one stretch, six spellers got
28 consecutive words right, and there were three perfect rounds
during the finals. The last time there was a single perfect round
was the infamous 2019 bee, which ended in an eight-way tie.
Sarv, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, who
ultimately finished third, would have been the youngest champion
since Nihar Janga in 2016. He has three years of eligibility
remaining.
The most poised and mature of the final three, Sarvadnya — who's
from Visalia, California — ends his career as the runner-up. He's 14
and in the eighth grade, which means he has aged out of the
competition. It's not a bad way to go out, considering that Faizan
became just the fifth runner-up in a century to come back and win,
and the first since Sean Conley in 2001.
Including Faizan, whose parents emigrated from southern India, 30 of
the past 36 champions have been Indian American, a run that began
with Nupur Lala’s victory in 1999, which was later featured in the
documentary “Spellbound.” Lala was among the dozens of past
champions who attended this year and signed autographs for spellers,
families and bee fans to honor the anniversary.
With the winner’s haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of
$25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big
splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik’s cube with 21
squares on each side. This time, he said he’d donate a large portion
of his winnings to charity.
The bee began in 1925 when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited
other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to
Washington. For the past 14 years, Scripps has hosted the
competition at a convention center just outside the nation's
capital, but the bee returns downtown next year to Constitution
Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House.
A passionate champion
Faizan has been spelling for more than half his life. He competed in
the 2019 bee as a 7-year-old, getting in through a wild-card program
that has since been discontinued. He qualified again in 2023 and
made the semifinals before last year's second-place finish.
“One thing that differentiates him is he really has a passion for
this. In his free time, when he's not studying for the bee, he's
literally looking up archaic, obsolete words that have no chance of
being asked,” Bruhat said. “I don't think he cares as much about the
title as his passion for language and words.”
Faizan had no regrets about showing that enthusiasm, even though it
nearly cost him.
“No offense to Bruhat, but I think he really took the bee a little
too seriously,” Faizan said. “I decided to have fun with this bee,
and I did well, and here I am.”
___
Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012.
Follow his work here.
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