KBC 5 winner went bankrupt after winning Rs 5 crore on the show

Team Udayavani, Aug 25, 2021, 11:49 AM IST

As Kaun Banega Crorepati 13 has begun airing on Sony TV, let’s go back in time and know about the tragic life story of KBC 5 winner Sushil Kumar. He was the first-ever contestant of the quiz-based reality show to win Rs 5 crore in 2011.

Hailing from Bihar, Sushil came from a middle-class background. He made headlines after winning KBC season 5 but went bankrupt later as he failed to invest his money wisely.

Last year he narrated his story and the struggles he faced after winning KBC5 on Facebook.

He wrote the Facebook post titled, ‘The worst phase of my life after winning Kaun Banega Crorepati’

“2015-2016 was the most challenging time of my life. I didn’t know what to do. I was a local celebrity and would attend programmes for 10 or sometimes even 15 days a month somewhere or the other in Bihar. I was drifting away from my studies. And because I was a local celebrity, I took the media very seriously in those days. Sometimes journalists would interview and write about me. Without any experience of how I should speak with them, I would tell them about the business so that I don’t come across as jobless. However, those businesses would collapse after a few days,” he wrote.

He got actively involved in charity but later realized it was all farce, further straining his relationship with his wife. He wrote, “After KBC, I became a philanthropist, who was addicted to ‘secret donations’ and would attend about 50 thousand events in a month. Due to this, a lot of times, people cheated on me, which I got to know only later after the donations were made. Due to this, my relationship with my wife was slowly worsening. She would often said that I don’t know how to differentiate between the right and wrong people and that I wasn’t concerned about the future. We would often fight over this.”

Explaining how he struggled with alcohol addiction, “Due to the nature of my business, I came in contact with a few boys studying media. I also got introduced to some theatre artists. However, when these students and artists would talk about a subject, I would feel intimidated and realized that I didn’t know much about these topics or subjects. Slowly, I got addicted to alcohol and smoking, in addition to other addictions. Whenever I stayed in Delhi for a week, I indulged in drinking and smoking with seven different groups. I found their talks attractive. In their company, I started taking the media very lightly.”

He added, “I had come to Mumbai with the dream of becoming a film director, but then I left one day and started staying with one of my lyricist friends. I would lay in the room and watch one film after another or read books that I had brought with myself. This continued for about six months where I would smoke a full packet of cigarette in a day. Since I was staying all by myself, here, I got the opportunity to look at myself objectively. And I realised a lot of things. In the meantime, however, I wrote three scripts which a production house liked and gave me Rs 20 thousand for it. Soon after, I returned home from Mumbai and prepared to become a teacher. I got through.”

He concluded his post, “After spending six months alone in the city, I realised I came to Mumbai not to become a filmmaker. I was rather running away from my problems. I realised that happiness arrives when you follow your heart. I came back home and started preparing for a teaching course, which I also cracked. I am also involved in a lot of environmental work that brings me peace. I had alcohol last in 2016 and quit smoking last year also. Now, each day is like a celebration to me. I want to earn just enough for my survival and keep doing something or the other for the betterment of the environment.”