In a story that could just as easily be a scene lifted from a Judd Apatow movie, a Spanish TV reporter named Natalia Escudero mistakenly thought that she won millions in the lottery and quit live on the air. The only problem was that she didn’t strike it rich at all. As it turns out, her winning lotto ticket was only good for $5,550, not the $4.4 million jackpot she assumed she had won.
The reason behind the confusion, according to the New York Post, is that the specific lottery Escudero entered doesn’t give out the jackpot to a lone person, but rather spreads it out across a number of winners. Seemingly unaware of this, Escudero couldn’t help but jump up for joy while well-wishers around her started celebrating and spraying her with champagne.
As you’ll see in the somewhat cringe-worthy video below, Escudero starts waving her finger while exclaiming, “Natalia doesn’t work tomorrow!”
Aquí la tienes: "la reportera de La 1" de la que habla todo el mundo a estas horas. ¡Se llama Natalia Escudero! #LoteríaRTVE
🔴 Directo ➡ https://t.co/pfgTOQpaaN pic.twitter.com/58j3ACuNte
— TVE (@tve_tve) December 22, 2019
Ultimately, someone told Escudero that she didn’t actually win enough money to retire on. Before long, people online started to accuse her of acting in an extremely unprofessional manner. Addressing those complaints, Escudero apologized for her actions and said that her emotions simply got the best of her.
Incidentally, for anyone who grew up watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, this whole saga might sound somewhat familiar. Specifically, you might remember an old episode where Will and Carlton trick their butler Geoffrey into thinking he won the lottery. Thinking he’s a newly minted millionaire, Geoffrey immediately erupts into song and obnoxiously announces that he’s quitting right on the spot. Of course, things got quite awkward when he finally learned that he didn’t, in fact, win anything.
