Hey, Millionaire!
Having more money can help people get closer to their families.
That can be because they don't have to work such long hours, they don't need to commute
so far to keep their rental price down, or even because they can quit their jobs and
spend all that time with their loved ones instead.
That's one of the great things about winning the lottery.
And loads of lottery winners say that the thing they loved most about their jackpot
win was getting closer to the people they loved.
But that's not always how it goes.
Sometimes, more money can actually push you further away from your family.
That's exactly what happened to Gloria MacKenzie.
This is the story of how Gloria's huge lottery win ruined what should have been one of her
closest relationships.
Gloria MacKenzie had lived in Florida her whole life.
In 1951, she married her husband, Ralph, and they moved into a trailer park together.
And she lived there with him for the next 54 years!
Sadly, in 2005, Ralph passed away, and Gloria was forced to live on social security after
that.
Those are seriously humble beginnings for someone who would one day become the biggest
sole lottery winner in the history of America!
Gloria was already 84 years old when she walked into a Zephyrhills Publix supermarket and
picked up a few lottery tickets on her way out.
She had no idea she was carrying the winning numbers in her pocket.
But it didn't take long before her life was changed forever.
She'd picked all the right numbers and hit the Powerball jackpot!
It's everyone's dream, but it was even more than Gloria had expected.
This was 2013, and, at the time, the jackpot Gloria had won broke the record for the largest
ever jackpot with only one winner in US history.
She'd won a mind-blowing $590 million!
She chose the lump sum and, after taxes, she went home with a whopping $278 million.
That's a big change from living off social security in a trailer park.
Of course, like most of us, Gloria had no idea how to manage that kind of fortune.
She knew she didn't know what she was doing, so she decided that the best decision she
could make was to hand over control to somebody else.
That's a reasonable thing to think, and many people would say it's the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, Gloria picked the wrong person to help her.
She chose her son.
They say it only takes a second to change your life - and that's got to be true if you
think of Gloria's story.
But I'm going to give you 5 seconds to change your life by clicking subscribe!
5... 4... 3... 2... 1!
Okay, so your life won't have changed as much as Gloria's, but at least you won't miss any
great lottery news from now on!
Keep watching to find out what happened to Gloria!
It started when she decided to give half of her new fortune to her son, Scott.
That's a pretty generous gift, except it wasn't really a gift at all.
Gloria felt she needed to do that because Scott started claiming that he'd given Gloria
$5 out of the $10 she used to buy the tickets.
Lawyers are still trying to work out if that claim was true.
Scott might have done some work around the house for Gloria and kind of earned $5 that
was used for the lottery tickets.
Or he might have handed her $5 right before she bought the ticket.
Or maybe he hadn't given her any money at all.
But either way, Scott insisted that he'd paid for half the tickets and was entitled to half
the winnings.
Gloria gave him half, and he promised to look after her for the rest of her life.
He started putting this money into trusts and other things to help Gloria save on taxes.
Gloria also wanted to give money to charity, so Scott said he was helping her do that.
Everything might have stayed the same between them if it had stopped there.
But sadly, it didn't.
Before she did anything, Gloria gave a portion of her half of the money to her other children.
She also bought herself her first ever real home.
She chose a luxury, 5 bedroom, 6,300 square foot house in the Glen Kernan Country Club.
It was worth about $1.13 million.
Gloria was living it up for the first time in her life.
But then she made the huge mistake of giving Scott power of attorney over her own half
of the winnings.
Scott was definitely not the right person to trust with that kind of money.
His first big mistake was hiring an investment advisor who was best known for his financial
advice on a local call-in radio show.
He'd never actually handled large sums of money before and wasn't qualified at all to
help Scott manage Gloria's finances.
That became clear really quick.
He left her money to sit in an account that didn't earn her anything for ages.
Even though he wasn't doing anything with her fortune, he was still happy to charge
her $2 million for his services!
And it didn't get any better after that.
It's not clear how much of Gloria's savings are left now.
You're probably thinking it can't get any worse, but it did.
I already mentioned that Scott had promised to look after Gloria for the rest of her life.
That's the least he could do, after all.
That was a large part of the reason Gloria had been so quick to hand over her fortune
to her son.
She was old, but her brain was still working as well as it always had, and she didn't want
nurses looking after her.
Her very worst fear was being put into a care home for her final years.
All she wanted was to be independent and with her family for the short time she had left.
She thought Scott would be happy to look after her.
But she was very wrong.
If you win a huge jackpot, who will you tell?
And, more importantly, who's never finding out about it?
Let us know in the comments!
And keep watching to find out what happened to Gloria's money!
She was now in her late 80s, and one day, she sadly fell and injured herself.
It wasn't too serious, but she did need help after that.
But Scott didn't care.
Instead of showing up to help, he kicked Gloria out of her own home.
She didn't think he could do this because she'd put the deed to her house in her daughter's
name.
But when she checked, she realized that the deed had been transferred to Scott without
her knowing.
Scott had been sneaking around behind her back the entire time.
Luckily, one of Gloria's other children allowed her to move into their home instead of forcing
her to go to a care home.
But Gloria still lost the house she loved.
But now, Gloria wasn't going to take this lying down anymore.
She rightly decided to sue Scott.
But it wasn't going to be easy.
Scott convinced the judge to throw out the lawsuit.
And, sadly, it worked.
But Gloria's lawyers weren't going to let that happen.
They filed another lawsuit soon after, and this time, they succeeded.
According to Gloria's lawyers, if Scott had hired a reputable financial advisor, Gloria
would've made at least $10 million from investments by 2019, when the court case was filed.
She might even have made more than that.
They also claim that Scott was clearly acting in bad faith and taking advantage of his now
90-year-old mother.
This is an even more serious accusation because of her failing health - it means he was taking
advantage of a vulnerable person.
Scott, of course, is refusing to accept any of this.
He says the investments that were made were in line with his mother's wishes.
I don't know how he can claim that when almost no investments were made at all, even though
she was slapped with a $2 million bill for the services of that terrible advisor Scott
hired.
More than that, Scott says this is all because his mom refuses to have herself looked after
by professionals, and instead, she's trying to manipulate her family into spending all
their time caring for her.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a really cruel thing to say, especially when
Gloria essentially paid Scott over $150 million to look after her in her last years.
The least he could do is be kind to his mother - she's clearly not a bad mom if her other
child was willing to take her in, and she so happily handed over a fortune to each of
her kids.
And let's not forget that Scott promised to look after her in the first place.
Unfortunately, we don't yet know the outcome of the lawsuit.
But I hope Scott got exactly what he deserved, and I hope Gloria got justice.
This story just goes to show that lottery winnings can bring out the very worst in people.
Hopefully, if you win the lottery one day, the same thing won't happen to you.