One Time $10 Million Lottery Winner Now Broke

Sharon Tirabassi hit the jackpot nine years ago by winning $10.5 million in the Canadian Lotto Super 7. Today, she has to catch a bus to her part-time job and lives in a rental property that she struggles to maintain…

Via NewsOne reports: 

The 35-year-old mother of six, who has gone from the lavish life of a high roller to now living from paycheck to paycheck, claims that the lack of a financial adviser and uncontrolled spending led to her downfall. Tirabassi says she was lured into purchasing all of the trappings that money can buy: a big house, fancy cars, designer wardrobe. Tirabassi also took exotic trips, threw fancy parties and gave friends and family handouts and loans, which weren’t paid back in most cases. Before she knew it, all of her winnings had evaporated. 

The once millionaire admits to checking on her bank account every now and then. There were always seemed to be enough zeroes.

Tirabassi, who had bounced around from shelter to shelter as a child, admits she was unprepared for the millionaire lifestyle. Before her win, Tirabassi, whose children are from different fathers, had just landed a job as a personal care provider and had just taken herself off the welfare roll. 

She married her husband, Vinny, in 2006. He brought three children into the union and now they are raising nine altogether. The couple, who do not regret the fun they had spending the winnings, did learn a valuable lesson: “money is the root of all evil.”

Vinny told 234Daily, “Money doesn’t buy you happiness. It caused her a lot of headaches,” he says. “She lost a lot of friends, a lot of family.”

After Vinny spent 18 months behind bars for driving impaired and causing bodily harm, Tirabassi lost their home. The family was forced to move around quite a bit and finally settled into a modest rental property.

Even though it has been nine years since her win, Tirabassi and her husband worry that they could still get robbed if people knew where they lived now, since their Lotto winnings did not make them a lot of friends.

When Tirabassi is not taking the bus to work as a personal support worker, she maneuvers a hot pink bicycle to her place of employment. The couple’s Cadillac Escalade, which is one of four vehicles they purchased, is the only remaining one they own. The SUV needs repairs which Tirabassi says they cannot afford right now.

After all that has happened, Tirabassi cautions Lotto winners to “try to keep it to yourself. Keep it to yourself and don’t trust anybody but family.”

The young woman who claims she is not bitter about losing her millions is just now concentrating on the most important matter at hand and that is raising her children. She tells 234Daily “I’m trying to get them to learn that they have to work for money. Every so often they ask for money and I say, ‘I don’t have any money till payday. You have to wait ’til payday!’”

This is really pathetic for a lottery winner, just maybe she didn’t value the money because it wasn’t worked for.

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