MR LEGENDS FINALIST WINS R1 MILLION

A finalist in the Mr Legends 2008 competition has scooped the largest cash prize won on a South African television game show in eight years.

On Sunday, 24-year old Dustin Carr, a recruitment agent from Bryanston in Johannesburg became the first South African game show millionaire in eight years in a nail-biting episode of M-Net’s Power of 10.

The previous R1 Million winnings were paid out in 2000 when David Paterson from Port Elizabeth climbed all the way up the money ladder in the channel’s first game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

In Power of 10 contestants have to answer five simple questions about the way South Africans responded in a nationwide poll.

Carr, who came fourth in the recent Mr Legends pageant at the popular Pretoria gay nightclub, said he did not enter the game with a particular strategy.

“My cousin Jessica, who supported me in the show, and I did our homework about the population breakdown in South Africa, and hoped that it would be enough. Luckily it was!” he said.

Carr added that he never thought he would win so much money: “Never! I had no intention to go for the Million Rand question. There was just something that made me do it. It’s all quite surreal. It’s just really jump started my life. What 24 year old can say he has a Million?”

And his plans for the money? “I will finally be moving out of the folks’ place. I am buying an apartment, 80% cash and the rest on a bond, a new car and major shopping spree, and of course I’ll save a little, that’s if there is any left,” he said.

Power of 10 airs Sundays at 18:00 on M-Net.