Melissa Ede: The Transgender Lottery Winner’s Amazing and Brave Story
There are many lottery winners out there who have won and used their money to help them fight illness or overcome the problems that life can generally throw at us. Melissa Ede is no different. Here is the Transgender Lottery Winner’s Amazing and Brave story as she speaks of how she went from nothing, and working all the hours she could to scrape by, to finally having enough money to live the life she wants to – and share it with the woman she loves.
£4 Million Lottery Scratchcard Win
Edes is a 57 year old taxi driver turned transgender rights campaigner and self-styled social media expert, already well known for the appearances she makes on the internet and television. She bought her winning ticket from a petrol station when she stopped to buy fuel on her way to work one Saturday night. Since her win, she said she had quit her job, meaning that for the first time since she started work as a cabbie, she didn’t have to work over the New Year period. Speaking at a news conference, she said: “It is just unbelievable. This is something that only ever happens to other people.”
She commented that the £10 National Lottery scratch card had “just caught my eye” and she bought it with change from her petrol purchase. Once she’d uncovered her numbers and realized she’d won, she immediately ran back into the garage shouting: “You’ve just given me £4m – 2018 is going to be the best year ever.” Top of her shopping wants are a new Audi car, a home of her own and a “dream wedding”. She said she now wanted to concentrate on helping others experiencing gender challenges, and give back to the people who have helped her, as well as writing her autobiography as her tale is worth telling. “The transgender fight to where I am now has been a very difficult path, I received my operation almost seven years ago and I am really proud of who I am today. I now want to help others in similar situations and believe my autobiography will do just this.”
Social Media Celebrity
Melissa is already famous for posting videos of herself online which feature her singing and dancing in sexy outfits. She’s noted for also appearing on the TV court show Judge Rinder. Last year she set up a GoFundMe page to pay for new dentures, on which she commented that her teeth had been consistently damaged by years of “hormones and violence”. Her other notable achievement was being one of 200,000 applicants for a one-way space mission to Mars.
Marriage for Mel the Millionaire
Melissa is now also able to plan the dream wedding she thought she might never be able to have, after proposing to her partner over the Christmas period. She says she and her fiancé, paranormal investigator Rachel Nason, 37, have shelved their modest plans for a small register office event for a huge wedding with all the trimmings. “It’ll be a fantastic wedding,” she said. “At the end of the day, Melissa Ede does everything differently so my wedding will be done differently.”
She added: “I’m not Melissa Ede the taxi driver any more, I’m Mel the millionaire. Just because I’m a rich bitch doesn’t stop me being the crazy bitch I’ve always been.”
She’s also vowed to continue with her social media antics, In the past, her hundreds of followers have seen her post a range of unusual video clips about her life, which have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. She’s also appeared on programs like The Jeremy Kyle Show, too. Edes said the win and her engagement had made Christmas special for the first time ever in her life. “Christmases being young were a sad time because I was always getting the presents of a little boy and things like that and I didn’t want them. Christmas so far in my life has been a terrible time and now every day’s Christmas.” she commented.
She added that her partner, Ms Nason, who did not join the press conference in Hull, gave her an engagement ring just after Christmas and she now had a chance to given her one too. Edes added that she had the transition operation seven years ago and now wants to write a book about her “extraordinary life”.
Miss Ede said she had told her fiancée that 2017 was going to be the year she became a millionaire and she succeeded on Saturday, with one day to go. She had to make the choice between buying cigarettes or the scratch card, and said “I looked at it and I thought, ‘cigs or scratch card, what do I do? Something was telling me to buy that scratch card.” Miss Ede said she had simply hoped to win £100 to make up for taking off New Year’s Eve for the first time in 25 years because she wanted to be with her new fiancée.
She went on to describe how she worked up to 15 hours a day in her rented Ford Mondeo taxi to make ends meet and lived in one room in a shared house and said: “These dreams that I’ve always had now are a reality. I’ve had nothing in my life. Some days I’ve had to choose between a packet of cigarettes and something to eat and I’ve taken the packet of cigarettes way out. I haven’t had a life.” adding “The transgender fight to where I am now has been a difficult path. I received my operation almost seven years ago and I am really proud of who I am today. What a fairy-tale ending. It is all just like a dream.”
It most certainly is, and hopefully Miss Edes will now be able to put all her plans into action and live the life she feels she finally deserves. We all wish her well in her quest to have a happy and healthy life from now onwards.
