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This is probably one of the more stark and poignant tales of how money cannot buy you happiness.
When Gillian Bayford and her then-husband won the equivalent of $187.5 million (over R3 billion!!) in a EuroMillions lottery in August 2012, they did not expect that their lives would nose-dive into despair.
While the life-changing sum held promises of many riches, it actually ended up having unexpected consequences, ruining some of the most important relationships in Gillian’s life.
In a tragic twist, the pair separated just 15 months after being announced as winners. Then, the relationship with her family followed, per the Sun:
Speaking to The Sun back in 2016, she said: “It’s upsetting and raw. The money was supposed to make everybody happy. But it’s made them demanding and greedy.
Despite giving her family £20 million, things quickly turned sour and they stopped speaking to her. She said that her dad tried to take control of the money she won, and repeatedly tried to claim a stake in her business.
“They have lost touch with where they’ve come from,” she said of her family in an interview.
Things went from bad to worse for Gillian, it seems:
This is the poignant tale of Adrian and Gillian Bayford, a couple from Dundee, Scotland, who won an astonishing £148 million in the EuroMillions lottery in 2012. However, the decade that followed saw their lives unravel in unexpected ways.
In a candid interview with The… pic.twitter.com/wJa3jMjbtj
— GGToken (@gg_tkn) September 2, 2023
Living in Haverhill, Suffolk, at the time of the win, Gillian immediately helped her father and brother by paying off their £700,000 debts, which accumulated after a series of failed business ventures.
She said: “My dad and brother had debts of £700,000 on the day we won. That was the first thing we paid for.
“Adrian’s family had to wait weeks but my parents and brother were first. They got their cars and houses before anyone.”
She then gave her father and mother (Brenda McCulloch) – who were living in a caravan at the time – more money so they could buy an apartment in Carnoustie on Scotland’s east coast. Nine months later, they asked her to give her brother even more money.
She agreed and diligently gave him £800,000 for a new play centre business. But soon after that, he stopped talking to her and even got married in secret.
Her brother Colin has a £288,000 house, drives Audis with private plates and marries his girlfriend without telling Gillian or inviting her to the wedding.
Despite offering her family financial help, Bayford told the newspaper that relationships dramatically deteriorated. “They’re rubbing people’s noses in it by flashing their cash, which I think is downright nasty”, she said, adding that:
