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A woman who won more than $1 million on Wheel of Fortune kept it a secret from her boyfriend for four months. He only found out out her winning the massive prize when he tuned in and watched the show Tuesday night.
Christina Derevjanik set a new Wheel of Fortune record when she ended up with $1,035,155 in winnings during Tuesday’s episode. She had “only” won $35,155 in cash, plus a trip to Montana and Japan, when she completed the bonus round and discovered that she had landed on the “One Million” prize with her bonus spin.
Interestingly, Derevjanik had joked before the prize reveal that she would put in her two-week notice if she won a million dollars. Host Ryan Seacrest then pointed out that her boss was actually sitting in the audience.
“I can pay off my student loans!” she told Seacrest after the big reveal. The host then told Derevjanik to look at the camera.
“What would you like to say to your boss?” he asked, to which she replied, “We’ll have a discussion once we get back to the office.”
“I just completely went into another world,” Derevjanik said in an interview posted on the Wheel of Fortune Instagram page. “I was like ‘Oh my God! I can’t even believe that I can now pay things off [and] put stresses aside.’ This is amazing, I’m so happy.”
Making Christina Derevjanik’s big Wheel of Fortune win even more interesting is the fact that she couldn’t tell anyone about it until the episode aired this week. Not even her boyfriend, who watched the show from Boston while she and some friends had a viewing party in Stamford, Connecticut.
“He called me and was just so excited,” she told the New York Post.
Derevjanik told the Post that she was leaning towards taking a lump sum payment rather than receiving her cash prize in installments. Should she do so, she will pocket around $660,000, which she said she will use to pay off those student loans she mentioned on the show, as well as buy her first house.
“I don’t know when I would’ve been able to afford a home, so these winnings are just completely life-changing for me,” she said. “I’m really excited about what the future holds now that I have this financial freedom.”
Derevjanik also said that she won’t be quitting her job after all, saying her boss was very happy for her and that she “was just so excited that she was able to be part of the experience.”