You know how they say that family is everything, that your family members are the people you love the most, or that “in family life begins and love never ends”.
Well, maybe love can end- or at least be put to a pause- when money gets in between.
Like what happened in a Nova Scotia family a few years ago, when an aunt and her nephew met in court after their $1.2-million Chase the Ace win.
Barbara Reddick used to feel that her nephew Tyrone MacInnis was a good sign for her, but not anymore, it seems.
When MacInnis bought a lottery ticket for her back in the summer of 2018, she thought it would bring luck to her if she wrote his name on it. And that’s what she did.
And, although the ticket proved to be lucky indeed, it seems that the money that it brought to the family was enough for a war to start between the aunt and her nephew.
The Guysborough N.S. woman was given a ticket that was purchased by her nephew, who lives in Glace Bay. Just because Reddick considered her nephew to be a good sign, she wrote his name on the ticket, too, but, as she explained afterward, she never planned to split the jackpot with him.
“I put his name on it,” she said, “I told him, for good luck […] because he is like a sign to me- he was.”
When the ticket won the jackpot, Reddick and MacInnis appeared at the place where the woman was supposed to be photographed with her check and, as everyone expected, say a few words about how happy she was to have won the jackpot.
But things didn’t go exactly as planned.
When Reddick realized that she was supposed to split the money with her nephew, she got furious.
She kept repeating that she would take him to court because he lied about them deciding to split the money in case of winning. She insisted that she never talked with her nephew about sharing the money, and she added that she’d be calling her lawyer the next day.
Indeed, months later, the case was closed after the two family members did actually meet in court.
In September 2018, at the time 57-year-old Reddick and 19-year-old MacInnis arrived at the Port Hawkesbury courthouse, where they spent five hours talking and negotiating about their case.
Eventually, as their lawyers announced, they reached a settlement, according to which, Reddick received $850,000 and MacInnis took home the remaining $350,000.
And, although the boy didn’t answer the journalists’ calls for a comment, his aunt said that her feelings have been hurt and she’s been thinking about what happened all the time.
“I’ll never put anyone else’s name on a ticket. Especially family. It hurt,” Reddick said, adding: “He broke my heart. And I think about it all the time.”
The sad story is a reminder that relationships should be considered a priority, especially compared to money.
Watch the aunt’s reaction when she found out about having to split the money with her nephew in the video below.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
