The UK’s first ever contestant to win game show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ has revealed what she did with her prize money.
Judith Keppel, 83, bagged the jackpot prize on November 20, 2000 after she correctly answered that Eleanor of Aquitaine was married to King Henry II.
Ahead of the 25th anniversary of her life-changing triumph, Ms Keppel revealed that she still has the £1 million that she won.
‘I regarded it entirely that it should be invested and produce an income,’ she told The Times.
She did, however, use the money to take her daughter, Rosie, on holiday to see tigers in India and donated a Jeep to a wildlife charity.
But other than that, Ms Keppel decided to hire a finance manager to invest the money in stocks and shares, which has produced a decent income from dividends and interest.
Having separated from her husband Neil, the mother-of-three from Fulham, South-West London, had spent around £100 ringing the show’s contestant line to bid a secure place.
‘I remember targeting one particular day and dialling over and over again,’ she recalls.
Judith Keppel became the UK’s first ever winner of Who Wants to be a Millionaire 25 years ago
Keppel says she invested the money instead of spending it
‘BT rang me up and asked me if I realised my telephone bills were rising.’
She previously said about the million pound question ‘Which king was married to Eleanor Aquitaine?’ she said: ‘Just two months before the programme, I’d been in France and visited an abbey church that was completely empty except for these four tombs.
‘One of them was Eleanor and next to her was her husband, Henry II. It was quite spooky in a way,’ she says.
Speaking about the prize money, she said: ‘It made a huge difference to me.
‘I wasn’t completely skint but I was a bit worried about money, so I just felt this huge amount of relief.
‘If I was much younger, I might have gone out and bought a huge Lamborghini but, instead, I regarded it as a wonderful pension pot.
The quiz champion, who happens to be a distant cousin of Queen Camilla, is to date the UK’s only female Millionaire winner.
She went on to return to the show in 2003 for a winners special and with the help of Davind Seaman won £32,000 for charity.
