A Golden Balls contestant has revealed his debt spiral would have been solved if he hadn’t had £100,000 stolen from him on the ITV game show.
Stephen Bushnall was a contestant on the programme in 2008 and his episode will forever go down in pop culture infamy after his competitor Sarah double-crossed him.
Fans will remember that Stephen was up against Sarah in a nail-biting head-to-head but was duped out of winning the prize fund despite both parties having agreed to split the money down the middle, with Sarah choosing to steal the total for herself.
Reflecting on the savage blow, Stephen said the winnings would have helped him to pay off his debts.
‘I had quite a bit of debt at the time, so about £15,000-£16,000 of it would have paid off all my debts,’ he shared.
‘It would have put me out of debt, and it would have put me a few months ahead on bills.’
Stephen added that he would have also spent his winnings on his children and his mother.
‘I probably wouldn’t have spent much of it on myself, to be honest,’ he continued to the.
‘I’d maybe have gone on holiday if I’d have gotten the full fifty [grand].
‘Obviously at the time, I was thinking, “Well, this is great! I can maybe put a deposit on a house, I can treat the kids, I can basically put my life in order. It would have massively set me up. It would have changed my life”.’
Golden Balls aired on ITV for one year from June 2007 to December 2009 and was famously hosted by Jasper Carrott.
The split or steal element of the game took place in the final round and saw each contestant given two balls, one marked with ‘split’ and the other marked with ‘steal’.
The contestants then had to secretly pick which ball to choose and would use this time to speak to each other and ask Jasper for advice before making their decision.
If both players chose split they each received half the jackpot, if one chose steal and the other chose split, the steal contestant would win the entire jackpot, and if they both picked to steal, they would both leave emptyhanded.
