ITV Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: The West London winner who enraged viewers by revealing he was already loaded

The TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a simple enough format – answer 15 questions correctly and win a million pounds.

However, since it began airing in 1998, there have only been six UK winners, each with their own reasons for trying to bag the cash.

One contestant, who is know to have lived in London, caused controversy for his reasons behind entering the show, The Mirror reports.

Robert Brydges was a retired banker and was already wealthy at the time he appeared on a 2001 episode of the gameshow.

READ MORE: ITV Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?: The million pound questions that won the brainiest contestants the jackpot

Robert, who was 60-years-old at the time, competed on the 10th series of the quiz show.

He became only the third contestant to win the £1 million prize.

Oxford-educated and from Hampshire, he had reportedly retired 20 years early after working as vice-president for Hanover Trust, the US banking giant, and as a director for GNI Fund Management.

He and his American wife are said to have split their time between a £900,000 Hampshire house and £2 million Holland Park townhouse in West London.

At the time, one neighbour said: “Gambling on the tricky questions must be a lot easier when you’re already worth millions. I suppose £16,000 must seem like loose change to him.”

Since the show, Robert studied an MA at the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham.

He also said that he has a new passion: “I planted 50 truffle-inoculated oak saplings, which take around eight to ten years to produce.”

It was rumoured that Robert only entered the show because he believed the questions were too easy not to – and it appears he was right.

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For the million pound question, Brydges used his 50:50 lifeline to correctly answer: Which scientific unit is named after an Italian nobleman?

Left with answers ‘Volt’ and ‘Ohm,’ Robert chose Volt and won the cash prize.

He has since returned for a charity version of the show, winning £32,000 alongside Judith Chalmers.

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https://www.mylondon.news/news/tv/itv-who-wants-millionaire-west-22185933

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