Insider Buzz: Lottery winner's life to be chronicled on BBCA Redditch, Worcestershire (UK) man who scooped the jackpot on the National Lottery is set to have his life story re-told as part of a special documentary.
Phil Kitchen's rags-to-riches tale will feature in a BBC programme focusing on the life of lottery winners since their windfall, as part of the game's 10th anniversary celebrations.
Mr Kitchen won £1.8 million (US$3.3 million) in the Lottery in 1999, but rather than living the high-life, the win sent him spiralling into a lifestyle of neglect.
Mr Kitchen died of Bronchial Pneumonia at his £500,000 Barnt Green mansion, which he shared with lifelong friend Bob Walker, on December 19, 2001.
An inquest was told after his win the 58-year-old spent most of his time locked in a room of the house, drinking heavily.
But Dave Lostitch - a friend of Mr Kitchen and landlord at the Black Swan Pub, Mount Pleasant - said the truth about Mr Kitchen's life had been distorted by press reports.
And he told The Standard he hoped the programme would be the chance to set the record straight.
"Phil received a lot of bad press shortly after he won the money with people calling him a tramp and a down-and-out which wasn't fair," he said.
"He lived in a house like everyone else and when he used to come in the pub he was completely sober, he was never drunk."
Mr Lostitch said he hoped his friend's story would act as a warning to other people hoping to land the Lottery jackpot.
"When Phil won he went off his head and just got drunk every day," he said.
"He put fencing and cameras around his house and hid himself away - we never saw him publicly, he just sat watching videos.
"He never went mad with his money - he bought a couple of cars and his house and that was it - but in the end it was the Lottery that killed him," he added.
Phil Kitchen's tale can be seen on The Real Story, BBC 1, Monday (August 2) at 7.30pm.
