The EUROMILLIONS winner revealed that her relationship with her family collapsed after winning big.
Gillian Bayford won £148 million on the lucky ticket in 2012, but things quickly fell apart with those closest to her.
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Gillian and Adrian divorced less than two years after winning. Credits: PA: Press Association
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Gillian used the money to help her family and buy an estate in Georgia Credit: PA: Press Association
The Scot was living in Haverhill, Suffolk, with her then-husband Adrian Bayford when she won the life-changing sum.
And despite giving “£20 million” to family members over the next few years, a rift emerged in the family.
Her parents stopped talking to her after she gained press attention, she told The Sun in 2016.
She said: “They are appalled when I get that kind of attention.
“They gave me up because I embarrassed them.
“But they were more than happy to take my money.”
She even missed the invitation to her brother’s wedding, she says.
Gillian has also remarried – to Brian Deans, a fraudster convicted of stealing £13,000 from Tesco.
In that 2016 interview, Gillian said: “It’s disturbing and raw. Money was supposed to make everyone happy. But it made them demanding and greedy.
“They (my family) have lost touch with where they came from.”
Gillian’s parents were penniless and living in a trailer at the time of her win.
Her father also had £700,000 of debt, which he shared with her brother, which they had accumulated through failed businesses.
So Gillian paid off the debt and bought her father and mother more money so they could buy a flat in Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland.
Then, nine months later, her parents asked to give her brother more money, £800,000, for a new playground business.
But Gillian says her brother then stopped talking to her and got married in secret.
“That was the first thing we paid.
“Adrian’s family had to wait for weeks, but my parents and brother were the first.
“They got their cars and houses before anyone else.”
He spent the money on a £300,000 house, Audis with number plates and a wedding, she said.
Gillian said: “I can hold my head up because I know I got them out of the situation.
“They belittled our name in the village and we had threats that they would burn down the family house.
“My dad and brother built one company after another and then closed them down.
“I delivered them from all their debts.”
She said her father tried to take control of the money she won and repeatedly tried to claim a stake in her business.
Gillian, who now lives in Dundee, claims: “They’ve lost touch with where they came from.
“They’re rubbing people’s noses in throwing their money away, which I think is absolutely disgusting.”
She said they had an argument with her over a newspaper story that embarrassed her parents.
In an interview with the Mirror in 2016, Bayford’s mother, Brenda McCulloch, described feeling “sad” about her lack of contact with her daughter and grandchildren.
She said that while her daughter had been “incredibly generous”, she contested the £20m figure, claiming it was much less than what they had received.
Gillian also split from husband Adrian just 15 months after winning the award.
Adrian told The Daily Mail in 2013 that the couple split because they weren’t spending time together as a couple – while he was working on maintaining their Georgian mansion.
He said: “When you win the lottery, it’s so stressful.
“I worked so hard on those fundamentals [at the mansion]I didn’t have a break, we never spent time together as a couple.
“I mean, you can’t change what happened. It’s just something that happened. But we’re great friends, we still get along.”
In 2021, Gillian gave birth to a child in isolation at the age of 48 after remarrying Brian Deans in 2018.
She said: “Some things are easier because of money, but it doesn’t really change anything. You still have to change a diaper or deal with being sick no matter what you’re worth.”
Gillian now runs a property company near her home in Dundee.
In 2016, she also helped the family of a disabled boy to buy and renovate a house.
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The pair won just under £150m Credit: Rex
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They celebrated their win at a country hotel in Hertfordshire with champagneCredit: Andrew Styczynski – The Sun
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