Canada Ping!
Posted on 03/29/2013 7:22:48 PM PDT by grundle
Nine years after cashing her $10,569,000.10 cheque, lotto winner Sharon Tirabassi is catching the Barton Street bus to her part-time job. She’s working to support her kids in their rented house in northeast Hamilton.
Tirabassi, 35 — one of this city’s biggest lotto winners — has gone from rolling in dough to living pay cheque to pay cheque.
The Lotto Super Seven payout didn’t come with a financial adviser and before she knew it — big house, fancy cars, designer clothes, lavish parties, exotic trips, handouts to family, loans to friends — the money was gone.
“You don’t think it’ll go (at the time), right?” she says.
She’d check her account now and again, but there were always so many zeroes that she figured it was fine — until one day there was just three quarters of a million left.
“And that was time for fun to stop and to just go back to life,” she says.
She’s happier today. Says life has more purpose now than when she was shopping.
She’s working part-time as a personal support worker and raising her six kids in a rented downtown house off Barton and Sherman.
Her husband, Vinny, also 35, has another three kids from a previous relationship.
Asked about how life turned out for them, Vinny shrugs, smoking a cigarette in the doorway of their rented home.
“I lived like this my whole life, I never was rich,” he says. “We grew up like this, so we’re used to it.”
Pretty much all that’s left now is in trust for her kids when they turn 26 — her children will be OK, and that’s what’s important to her.
“The moment I got it, I divided it among my family … all of that other stuff was fun in the beginning, now it’s like … back to life,” she says.
Before her win, Tirabassi had been living in an east Hamilton apartment with her three kids, each one from a different father.
She was Sharon Mentore then — not yet married. She had just landed a job as a personal care provider, fresh off welfare, and couldn’t afford a car.
But on Easter Weekend in April 2004, she literally hit the jackpot and won $10.5 million from a Lotto Super Seven ticket.
For someone who spent her teenage years bouncing around from shelter to shelter, she was unprepared for the millionaire lifestyle. That cheque might as well have been a money tree in the yard — it felt like cash for life.
Suddenly, life was but a dream.
She took friends on wild, all-expenses paid trips to Cancun, Florida, Las Vegas, California, the Caribbean.
She bought a house on West 5th, and she married Vinny.
In 2006, the newlyweds and blended Tirabassi family moved to a massive $515,000 home on Kitty Murray Lane in Ancaster.
Despite cashing a $10.5 million cheque just two years earlier, Tirabassi took out a $360,000 mortgage on the house.
The pair, Vinny says, owned four vehicles: a bright yellow Hummer, a Mustang, a Dodge Charger and a $200,000-plus, souped-up Cadillac Escalade — Tirabassi’s baby.
Her customized licence plate read “BABIPHAT,” after one of her favourite designer clothing lines.
Ancaster neighbours hated that Cadillac. Equipped with interior turntables and sound mixers, it blared hip-hop music in the driveway and shook their quiet suburban street.
Tirabassi didn’t like her neighbours.
“They didn’t like young people,” she says.
Besides the extravagant vehicles, a lot of the cash went to family and friends.
Too much, she admits now.
She gave her parents $1 million.
Another $1.75 million was divided among her four siblings.
She bought several houses in the city, renting them out at affordable rates to families. She said she paid people’s rent. Lent money to help out a friend when her husband went to jail. Helped another two friends start up a business in Toronto.
A lot of friends came out of the woodwork when news broke of her win — and a lot of them she never heard from again.
“Money is the root of all evil,” she says, shaking her head.
Vinny agrees.
“Friends that she hadn’t talked to in a long time came calling.”
“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.”
By 2007, according to a Spectator interview at the time, Tirabassi had already blown through half of her winnings, and was living off interest from investments on the other $5 million.
Also that year, Vinny crashed the Mustang.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of driving impaired and causing bodily harm. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail plus two years’ probation. And his licence was revoked for five years.
He would serve time again in 2011 after breaching his conditions and driving with a disqualified licence.
In 2008, while he was in jail, the Tirabassis lost the Ancaster house.
From there, they moved to Hagersville, then out west to Edmonton once Vinny was out of jail.
They moved around a lot and today, Hamilton’s penniless millionaires are back downtown, living in a rented house on a quiet industrial street — not far from where she started.
It’s modest, the walls covered in family photos and the odd relic from their flashier days — Michael Jackson memorabilia for her, Maple Leafs memorabilia for him.
They have two cats and a rabbit named Princess.
The Tirabassis are worried about people knowing where they live now. Their win didn’t make them a lot of friends, and they’re worried about being robbed.
“A lot of people do still think she has lots of money,” Vinny said.
Between the two of them, there are nine kids. Three each from previous relationships, and three more together.
The Dodge Charger and the Hummer are nowhere in sight on their new street. She drives a hot pink electric bike these days, when she’s not taking the bus.
The Cadillac’s in storage; it needs work done that she can’t afford right now.
A lot of friends are gone too.
People took advantage of them, didn’t pay them back when they loaned them money.
“(They said) ‘they’ve got enough so they’re OK, right?’” Vinny said.
Hamilton resident Gayle Zolaturiuk accepted a $30-million cheque from the OLG last week, and local convenience store owner Myungsu You is waiting to collect his $16.1 million on March 22.
If the Tirabassis can give Zolaturiuk and You one piece of advice as they collect their wins, it’s to be wary of whom you share it with.
“Try to keep it to yourself. Keep it to yourself and don’t trust anybody but family,” Tirabassi says.
But as she heads to work in her scrubs Wednesday, she says she couldn’t help giving so much away.
“That’s the way I was brought up. Help those who can’t help themselves,” she says with a shrug.
Rather than mourn the millions, she’s concentrating now on raising her kids with those same family values.
“I’m trying to get them to learn that they have to work for money,” Tirabassi says.
“Every so often they ask for money and I say I don’t have any money till payday. You have to wait ’til payday.”
10 Million is a lot of money but it is not infinite money.
For those deprived of a financial education, or , hell, financial anything, 10 million can sound like an amount that will never end.
I know some folks who hit it big.
White trash before, white trash after,
Got kicked out of more 5 Star hotels than you can name.
trashed out half million dollars houses. dead boats and deat motor toys all over the yard. Multiple dogs that never saw the outside of the house.
less than 20 years, both dead from alcoholism and all of the kids have felony records
Well, I am in that area of years where my first job was .02 a bale “in the barn”.
I never expected anything and was 100% spot on. I have done well for my education and experience during these decades of my life, IMHO and I am not so certain the new generation sees it the same.
Throwing money at a numbers racket was illegal in my day and just Tom Foolery. Playing the numbers is fine if it doesn’t affect anyone depending on you.
The poor get desperate and think it’s just around the corner. Vegas doesn’t have lavish lights and hotels for nothing.
Canada Ping!
A welfare-dependent version of “Atlas Shrugs”!
easy come easy go
poor and stupid
No. The love of money is the root of evil. Money, by itself, is a tool that is very useful. Greed for other's money is where people go wrong. Rich people aren't bad just because they have money; many are very generous and good. However, many poor people without money are evil because they are greedy and pursue having some by stealing it from those who have some. If you have money, use it in moderation and use it wisely. To hell with those poor who have evil intentions. God bless those poor who get by fine without greed for more.
He’s not the only one.
Consider the following:
1) Mike Tyson
Once the most feared boxer in the world, Mike Tyson earned more than $400 million during his career. But his luxurious lifestyle, filled with mansions, wild animals, and a large entourage – combined with shady management and an expensive divorce – forced him in 2003 to file for bankruptcy, claiming debts of $27 million.
The Takeaway Lesson: Iron Mike could have saved himself from losing a large chunk of his fortune by preparing a prenuptial agreement prior to marriage. Even if you’re not raking in millions, a prenup can protect your assets or business from being decimated in divorce court. And considering that one in two married couples eventually separate, that’s not a chance you want to take
2) Evander Holyfield – Made tens of millions of dollars in his career as a heavyweight champ.
Everyone seemed to take pride when he bought that gaudy mansion in suburban Atlanta and everyone collectively recoiled when it went into foreclosure because of his inability to keep up with his nine children from multiple babies’ mamas.
3) Nicholas Cage – After making upwards of $40 million in 2009, Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew bought mansions all over the world, went on outrageous spending sprees and lost it all.
4) Basketball Star Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson retired from the NBA with a $150 million career.
But went broke anyway.
TMZ has obtained court documents from Iverson’s ongoing divorce proceedings that clearly show a man drowning in debt.
Though he still earns $750,000 per year, Iverson is bleeding an estimated $360,000 each month.
About a third of his debt is owed to creditors –– his bank account was seized last year when he couldn’t come up with $860,000 he owed to a jeweler –– and another chunk goes to his mortgages.
But there are a few creature comforts, too, “like $10,000/month on clothes, $10,000/month on grocery/house items, $1,000/month on dry cleaning, $5,000/month on entertainment, $5,000/month on restaurants,” according to TMZ.
On top of that, his $4.5 million Atlanta mansion is in foreclosure. At least he can drive to and from court in style –– Iverson reportedly kept his Maybach, which he paid off before all of the money drama.
He’s not the first NBA star who has fallen from grace.
Former Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman has been in and out of the news recently for his reported alcohol and drug addiction and for owing more than $800,000 in unpaid child support.
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With $10 million yielding 5% and no tax, gives a cool $1/2 million per year.
That would support any “reasonable” lifestyle most would be content with.
Without eroding principle at all!!
Water seeks it’s own level. Works pretty much the same with people.
You would never know that they were rich. They live a nice upper middle class lifestyle and the kids were told that if they want something they will have to work and raise half the money.
a local guy has actually won twice.
Around $5 mil.
gave some money to the church, and bought a newer used car.
goes on vacation to Indonesia, from time to time.
Nobodys asks.....
Sharon Tirabassi ... as Amish as they come.
Having six kids didn’t help either, I’m sure.
Not completely - she did set up a small trust for each illegitimate child.
“Tirabassi didn’t like her neighbours.
“They didn’t like young people,” she says.”
More likely they didn’t like trash.
Very true.
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