The ex-wife of a man who won $273 million from a Mega Millions jackpot said the money doesn’t change the status of their relationship.
“He’s not appealing to me all of a sudden because he has this money,” Eileen Murray, 53, told the New York Post after Mike Weirsky, 53, claimed the lottery.
The couple divorced in October 2018 after being married for 15 years.
Murray said that during the marriage she worked as a cost analyst for a utility company but her husband was unemployed. Following the divorce, she paid him spousal support.
She said she won’t be trying to get a portion of the lottery winnings.
“I’m not going after anything. I have morals. I know what I’ve worked for and its everything that I have,” she said.
Still, she said she hopes her husband will do “the right thing.” Asked what she meant, she added: “Think about it. How long did I work? How long did I support him? I had to give him a lot of money in the divorce. You tell me what’s the moral thing to do.”
Weirsky told the NJ Advance Media that he knows people will approach him asking for money and that he’d consider giving some to people who treated him well; those that didn’t can forget about it, he added.
Mike Weirsky alongside N.J. lotto executive director. Sole winner of $273,000,000. pic.twitter.com/ayYMMhTs1k
— sarahbloomquist (@sarahbloomquist) March 7, 2019
NJ Lotto winner of $273 Mill disclosed that he hasn’t worked in at least 15yrs. & that he lived off of his ex-wife. They divorced in October. DOES SHE DESERVE SOME CASH??@FOX29philly
— jennifer joyce (@JenniJoyceTV) March 8, 2019
He said that he had been doing handyman work for a friend to make money before winning the lottery.
He also said he’d been “following his wife” around the country during their marriage but got a fresh start after the divorce.
Weirsky described himself as a “bum.”
“I was a bum in high school, I was a bum after,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe I’ll be a beach bum now.”
This story is unreal. He just bought lottery tickets, got distracted, and started to walk out of the store. Someone found the tickets and gave them to the store to hold onto until he came back. Turns out, one of those tickets was worth $273 MILLION… https://t.co/nHG6L39SE6
— Erin Coleman (@ErinColemanTV) March 7, 2019
Forgot Ticket
The Alpha resident actually forgot the winning ticket at the Quick Check in Phillipsburg, he told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.
A good Samaritan found the tickets and turned them into the cashier, who held them for Weirsky.
“[I was] paying more attention to my cellphone,” he said, reported the New York Post. “I put the tickets down. Put my money away and [there was] something with my phone … and just walked away.”
“I’m looking for the guy that handed them in,” Weirsky said. “I’m gonna give him something.”
He said he plans to buy a Ford Raptor pickup truck and relishes the feeling of being able to go and buy whatever he wants.
“I always wanted to know what it would be like to be able to just wake up and be able to go somewhere, buy something,” he said. “And when I get the money I’m going to do that.”
