Marie Holmes, the 26-year-old single mother from North Carolina who was one of three $188 million winners of a $564 million jackpot, says she ran outside her home when she realized she won.
“I started screaming outside,” Holmes recalled today on "Good Morning America." "I said, ‘We made it!'"
Holmes, of Shallotte, North Carolina, was fixing her children breakfast the day after the Feb. 11, drawing hen she saw the winning numbers on Facebook.
“I just happened to check Facebook and my friend had a post up with the numbers on it so I looked at the numbers and I had my numbers in my hand and I was like these are the same numbers on my ticket,” Holmes said on “GMA.” “Then I started screaming and stuff and my kids ran away from me and said I scared them.”
Holmes said her mom, who purchased the winning ticket for Holmes on her way to church, was the first person she called.
While her mom was convinced because she saw the numbers in person, Holmes says the rest of her family did not believe she had won the $564.1 million jackpot, the fifth largest lottery prize in U.S. history.
“I called my sister and I told her…she was like, ‘Stop playing with me. I’m asleep. You didn’t hit the lottery. Send me a picture,’” Holmes said. “So I sent her a picture and then I called my uncle and told him the same thing. He told me, ‘Man I’m at work don’t be playing with me.’”
Holmes had been living with six other people –- including her four children, ages 9 months to 7 years –- prior to her lottery win.
“I don’t have to worry about staying with my mom anymore. I can have my own place,” she said. "We're going to have our own everything."
“They can have their own house and stuff so it’s going to impact not only mine but the people around me," Holmes said of her family.
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