A LOTTERY winner gave a chilling prediction of his own downfall just weeks after scooping a £13million jackpot prize.
Trevor Cooper, from Te Kauwhata in the North Island, New Zealand, said money “doesn’t buy love” after remaining single and alone following his life-changing win.
Not known, clear with picture deskTrevor Cooper said speedway racing was more exciting than winning the lottery[/caption]
The former supermarket check-out operator said winning Lotto wasn’t the most exciting thing to ever happen to him either.
And despite earning more than £9,639 a week in interest after becoming a multi-millionaire, Trevor said his life didn’t change dramatically.
“The money doesn’t buy happiness and it doesn’t buy love either – it helps but it doesn’t buy it,” Trevor told the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly in 2012.
“I still go home. I still go to bed and I still get up in the morning and I’m still on my own.”
That was, however, until he met Sharie Marshall – falling in love before holding a lavish wedding at the Karaka mansion he paid for with his winnings.
The couple married on February 15, 2013, on the lawn of Trevor’s sprawling £963,000 pad in South Auckland.
Former comedian and television presenter Ewen Gilmour was just one of more than 100 friends and family in attendance.
The event was guarded heavily by security and Trevor’s two son’s watched on as he rode a new Harley-Davidson to lead the convoy of cars to meet his bride.
Public records show that between 2013 and 2015, the happily married couple owned 12 properties, with Trevor investing in million-dollar houses for his parents Kevin and Shirley and sister Sharon.
But Trevor and Sharie’s whirlwind romance was over within three years and they were soon divorced.
However, there was no prenuptial agreement between the pair, despite Trevor’s Lotto win months before their wedding.
“I told both my children, especially Trevor, you don’t need a prenup if you love them and they love you — it’s trust and understanding,” his mother, Shirley, told the New Zealand Herald in 2019.
“I never advised him to get one, it was his choice.”
While her relationship had become strained with her son following his marriage, Shirley said she wasn’t shocked to hear things had gone pear-shaped.
“I knew the marriage wouldn’t last,” she said. “But I told both my children who they marry is their choice and I will back them all the way — that’s what you have to do as a parent, unfortunately.”
Despite her son’s divorce and their difficult relationship throughout his marriage, Shirley admits she was happy the pair had got together.
Prior to meeting Sharie, Shirley said her son had been lonely and never had a “string of girlfriends”.
“I was happy he had someone. He said to me, ‘You have dad, Sharon has got a partner, I have no one’.”
But Trevor’s chilling prediction of his own downfall eventually rang true when his newly won riches weren’t enough to protect him from heartache.
According to the New Zeland Herald, Sharie re-married and had her third child with a man named Michael Capper, to whom she was engaged before her relationship with Trevor.
As for the multi-millionaire himself, he reportedly found love again with accountant Arlene Frost.
At least this time, however, Shirley is fond of her son’s new partner.
“She’s a lovely lady and we get on well,” she said, “My feeling is he will be a lot more cautious.
“They are living together. She needed somewhere to live, he offered her a bedroom and it’s grown from there.”
Elsewhere, a savvy man scooped a whopping £21million lotto prize and decided to splash the cash in a way he could get some back.
Cliff Little became a millionaire overnight and quit his job the day after bagging the entire Powerball Jackpot in Australia.
And a lottery vendor has hit the jackpot after selling tickets for 30 years.
Onchan Suriyon, 63, set up her stall 30 years ago and dreamed of scooping the prize herself one day to pay off her debts.
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