Adam and Jolene were clear favourites when The Block started this year, with viewers enjoying the self-proclaimed “bushies” and their Aussie larrikin approach to the renovations. However, fans have started to see a different side of Adam – and he’s being dragged through the mud for it.
It started on Monday night, when the contestant was seen quickly hauling insulation (that was sitting between his and Chantel and Wyatt’s houses) inside so the other team couldn’t get it.
When the other team subsequently asked if he had any insulation, he basically told them there was hardly any left and they were struggling to get their hands on enough, too.
Which wasn’t true — he had a huge pile of it hidden away.
It’s the first time viewers have seen Adam “lie” to another contestant, and it didn’t sit right with many fans, especially after he borrowed the Cursio brothers from Chantel and Wyatt (with Wyatt’s permission) over the weekend when he was in desperate need of finishing his and Jolene’s master ensuite bathroom.
Despite fan backlash, the pair told WHO they are doubling down on their strategy, explaining there was something in particular that forced them to put their foot down and be more ruthless.
What are The Block fans saying about Adam’s ‘sneaky’ move?
After the moment with the insulation, there was an onslaught of criticism online for Adam.
“I have completely lost all respect for Adam! Stealing House 2’s wall batts and then lying to their face!” one viewer said.
“Agreed! So wrong. He should be penalised for it,” another fan of the show said, with another person saying it was “uncalled for” and “sneaky”.
However, others were quick to call it out as “scripted” and point the finger at production, claiming it could have been a staged moment to try stir up drama. Others said his behaviour was justified, since it’s a “competition after all”.
Adam and Jolene stand by their change in strategy
Adam told WHO why the team decided to stop playing nice.
“We haven’t won a round, so we decided, let’s go a little bit harder,” he explained. “If we commit 100 per cent to our week and to our design, even with our own tradies, we’re like, no, we’re doing it. We come up with an idea, we’re going to complete it, we don’t care.”
The pair had a “brief discussion” with each other after they came second several times in the room reveals, with this ‘close but no cigar’ result making them eager to “push harder”.
“We decided to push the boundaries a little bit. I guess, reining in, not your friendships, but just sometimes how nice you are,” Adam shared.
“I guess we came into it going, yeah, we want to have fun, we want to meet people. We probably didn’t really think about the competition as such, if that makes sense. We just wanted to have fun.
“Then a few weeks in, we realised, we’re like, no, we’ve got potential here. We’ve come second nearly every week. We need to step it up.”
And step it up they have!
Basically, the team make no apologies for playing the game, and I suspect we can expect more of this approach moving forward.
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