She claims she spent over €800,000 settling her family’s debts.
A woman who won a whopping €172 million jackpot in 2012 has revealed that she cut ties with her family after they became ‘demanding and greedy’.
Gillian Bayford and her then-husband Adrian won the EuroMillions in August, 2012.
They immediately went public with the news, conducting media interviews and posing for photographs holding up their lucrative cheque and spraying champagne.
Gillian and Adrian separated just 12 months after their win, and her marriage turned out to not be the only relationship that suffered as a result of her newfound fortune.
Twelve years on, Gillian has spilled the beans about the negative aspects that came with her lottery win, and the breakdown of her relationship with her family.
The 51-year-old from Dundee has said that there will be “no reconciliation” with her parents and siblings after she had to bail them out of over €800,000 of debt.
Initially, Gillian claims her family demanded a share of her winnings, even after she bought her parents – who had been living in a caravan – a penthouse in eastern Scotland worth €325,000.
Then, her father Ian McCulloch – who died in 2021- and her brother Colin put themselves in extensive debt through a series of failed business ventures.
Gillian had to bail them out using her newfound wealth.
Gillian told The Sun in 2023: “My dad and brother built up one company after another and then closed them down. I’ve bailed them out of every debt.”
She claimed her family then had the audacity to request a further €1 million from her so that her brother Colin could set up a new play centre business.
As a result of Gillian’s refusal, her brother stopped talking to her, even going so far as to not invite her to his wedding.
“It’s upsetting and raw,” she said. “The money was supposed to make everybody happy. But it’s made them demanding and greedy.”
Gillian stated that she doesn’t want to repair her relationship with her family, saying: “I wish them a happy life, but there will be no reconciliation now.”
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Speaking to The Mirror back in 2016, Gillian’s mother Brenda McCulloch expressed her despair at not seeing her grandchildren for some time, adding: “I’d like to see the grandchildren but I couldn’t trust Gillian not to twist everything.
“It’s sad. In everyday life you hear people talking about their daughters or their mum,” the 74-year-old added. “We got on fine with our grandchildren and we love them.
“Gillian says that we didn’t try and get in touch with them, but if I’d tried she wouldn’t have let me.”
The mother-of-two has since moved on from her marriage to Adrian and met someone else.
Adrian, on the other hand, seems to be living a much more tranquil lifestyle.
He lives on a huge Cambridgeshire estate with his girlfriend Tracey Biles, where he tends to his allotment and looks after his family of goats.
