AN Essex mum is counting her lucky stars after winning a whopping one million pounds live on air as part of a national radio competition.

Samantha Hayes, from Colchester, has been crowned this year’s winner of Heart’s Make Me A Millionaire.

The 38-year-old was revealed as the competition’s fifth winner after a tense and emotional final this morning live on air on Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden.

Ten finalists took part in the final before listener Samantha - who recently got married - won the biggest prize on British radio.

On her win, she said: “I just feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

“I haven’t actually told my mum I’m on the radio and I’m not quite sure how she’s going to react.

“She had our son Albert last night, it was his first night away from home, and I just told her I’d won a competition to stay in a lovely hotel in London and we were going to go and have a date night.

“I was planning to tell her today, just because I didn’t want to get too nervous - well, I was nervous anyway - but now I actually need to go home and tell her I’ve just won a million.”

Echo: Tears - an emotional Samantha Hayes and Amanda Holden after her big winTears - an emotional Samantha Hayes and Amanda Holden after her big win (Image: Heart Radio)

Over the past 14 weeks, hundreds of contestants have taken home cash prizes ranging from £1,000 to £30,000, with contestants opting to turn down Heart’s daily cash prize for the chance to be in the final to win a life-changing sum of money.

Samantha bravely turned down £4,000 in February.

Throughout this morning’s rollercoaster final, the finalists took turns to enter ‘the vault’ where they then chose a safety deposit box – only one of which contained the cash prize of £1,000,000.

Samantha was the second person to enter the vault and chose box number four - because she felt four was ‘her year’ as she confessed to Amanda Holden she “wants to make her family of three a family of four”.

“In all honesty, I just can’t process it,” she said.

“I just can’t believe that this is actually a real thing.  

“I want to try for another baby - we were going to do that anyway, but this just makes it so much easier.”