'Had A Great Time': British Lotto Winner Who Blew $2.2M Jackpot In 8 Years

A British woman who recklessly spent more than $2.2 million in lottery winnings in just eight years said she doesn’t regret how she spent her cash and “had a great time.”

Nearly 20 years after collecting the prize, Lara Griffiths, a mother of two, said she’s just “sick of being painted as tragic.”“It’s become an overriding narrative that the lotto ruined my life,” Griffiths, of Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, told the South West News Service.

“People kept saying I was stupid, pumped full of plastic surgery and needed my kids taken away. But the fact is, I spent it wisely — and I had a great time,” said?Griffiths.Griffiths,?53,?was “shocked” when her ex-husband, Roger, told her that he’d won the life-changing prize back in 2005.

SWNS

Where did they spend the money?

Griffiths?said she and?Roger?spent the winnings on various items, including plane tickets, a ?150k salon where Lara worked, 30 second-hand cars and at least 15 designer handbags.??

She said they also?mortgaged a ?450,000 house with the winnings and that Roger spent ?25,000 on a music career with his band from college.

Griffiths then quit her $50,000-a-year teaching job out of concern that her students and co-workers would look at her differently.?According to SWNS, Lara then went to work full-time at the salon that they purchased, where she allegedly did not pay herself a salary.

The?money was gone eight years later in 2013 and the couple split the same year.Though she admitted of making mistakes, the West Yorkshire woman is adamant that the lottery “did not ruin my life.”

lottery

Their first big spend

“Everyone always asks you what it’s like to win the lottery,” she told the outlet. “But it’s not a tangible feeling — imagine being told you suddenly have 2 million in the bank.”Their first big spend? Immediately taking a 10-day trip to Dubai — although they still flew economy class and didn’t “fritter money away.”

Griffiths and her ex-husband’s two daughters — Kitty, now 16, and Ruby, now 19 — live comfortably with her 86-year-old mother in a four-bedroom house.

"I’ve spent the last 10 years making sure my children have a nice life regardless of [mistakes made]," she added, per SWNS.

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