A single mum of three received a ‘life-changing’ gift on Rich House, Poor House on Channel 5
A single mum-of-three was moved to tears(Image: Channel 5)
A single mum-of-three, drowning in debt, was moved to tears after a millionaire invested £100,000 in her budding restaurant venture and paid off her debt on Rich House, Poor House.
Valerie Mayer, from Portsmouth, who is juggling raising her three children and working as a full-time carer, appeared on the Channel 5 hit show on Sunday (March 29) night alongside mum Cleopatra.
The talented home cook has always had dreams of launching a Zimbabwean restaurant in the UK, however with a weekly budget of just £53 her lifelong passion has been pushed to the side as she battles to make ends meet.
In a heartbreaking moment, she admitted that she has faced threats from debt collectors. She revealed: “My financial situation got so bad that I had bailiffs come in, and I just went into a state of panic. I was looking out of the windows to see if anyone was there. I got scared to leave the house.”
Seeing how the top 1% live, Valerie swapped homes for a week with tech startup millionaire, Steve Bolton, who lives in a plush £1m, six-bedroom property in Bournemouth.
The father of four left school at 16 with no qualifications but built a business from scratch, with his company now boasting a portfolio worth £750m.
Given his hectic life as an entrepreneur, he missed out on quality time with his children, so he decided to invite his eldest daughter, marketing guru, Ella, and his clothes shop owner son, Charlie, to join him on the show.
The family traded their home with two lounges, a dining room for eight, six bedrooms and five bathrooms, for a week-long stay in Val’s council house 60 miles along the coast.
While Steve and his two children had to manage on £51.93 for the week, Valerie and her mum experienced a glimpse of luxury living with a weekly budget of £2,000. Val and Cleopatra indulged in costly seafood, went on shopping trips for clothes, and even treated themselves to a day at the races.
However, Steve and his family found it difficult to adapt in their new environment and things took an emotional turn as Steve visibly moved after finding out about Valerie’s debt.
It was clear that Steve wanted to help Valerie get her life on track as he had a few surprises for her when they finally reunited after their swap.
The millionaire not only committed to investing £100,000 into her restaurant venture, but also cleared all her debts and transformed her garden.
Sitting opposite each other, Steve went on to say: “We’ve been talking a lot about how we might be able to help you guys because that’s obviously a big part of what we want to do and we’ve thought about three things that we can do to help you.”
He continued: “The first one is already done and it’ll be a surprise when you get home, the second one is about your debt situation, so we wanted to get you out of debt and then the third thing is we want to back your vision, your dream, your passion and your talent for business.
“Support you financially, support you with mentoring, support you with anything and everything you need up to a value of £100,000.”
Valerie broke down in tears as she struggled to get her words out: “Oh, wow. I don’t even know…How do you say thank you? Thank you. Wow, this is amazing.”
With tears streaming down her face she said: “I’m feeling really overwhelmed right now. Happy tears. This can change mine in my family’s life. I really wanted this so much and I’m so glad that my family’s also going to be involved in this because it’s going to change everything for the better.”
Rich House, Poor House airs Sunday night from 9pm on Channel 5