The Block ‘quitters’ Elle Ferguson and Joel Patfull have remained dead silent amid questions about their exit from the renovation show after just 48 hours.
And in an attempt to finally hear their side of the story, Nova’s Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald and Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli cold-called the Sydney couple this week, but things didn’t quite go to plan.
The radio duo welcomed The Block host Scott Cam onto their show Thursday in the wake of his repeated public sprays at the Instagram influencer and retired AFL player, when Wippa told Cam they attempted to contact Elle and Joel the day before.
“We rang them yesterday, Scotty we can’t even play the audio because there isn’t anything to play,” Wippa said.
Fitzy further claimed, “Elle picked up the phone and said ‘This is Joel’s phone.’ And I said, ‘Hi Elle we’re looking for Joel, it’s Fitzy and Wippa here.’ And then Joel comes in and goes ‘Hi, how are you guys?’ And we introduced ourselves again and then bang, he was gone. I have hung up. He’s not a fan of [our] Show.”
Cam has been busy sledging the pair for throwing in the towel so quickly into filming, calling it “p*ss poor” and “unAustralian”, despite reports they left to care for Joel’s mother who’d suffered a Nasty fall in Adelaide.
Given the understandable circumstances, many have been wondering why Cam has hit out so passionately against them.
Speaking to news.com.au in the lead up to the Tree Change season premiere next week, the Channel 9 personality said his frustration stemmed from the couple upping sticks in the middle of the night with “no explanation.”
“They didn’t give us a reason why they were leaving. They never mentioned anything to us about visiting their sick mother,” Cam said.
“In fact, we flew them to Adelaide before The Block started for a week, and put them up in a hotel so they could see (Joel’s mother), and they came back and said ‘everything’s fine’.”
According to Cam, the cast and crew were stunned when Joel and Elle then disappeared.
“They never spoke to us, they just left in the middle of the night,” he said, adding: “I still don’t know why they left. They never mentioned their sick mother in the 48 hours before they left, or after they left. The executive producer spoke to them (after they left) and they didn’t mention their sick mother then either.”
Following up his comments on Fitz & WippaCam said the network would’ve “shut down production” to allow Elle and Joel to see their family.
“You know, come and talk to me and just tell me,” he said. “We would have sorted them out. Because a couple of years ago, Bec from Bec and George, great couple, contestants on The Block … Her mum passed away through the show and we shut the whole show down for a week.
“We brought them all back and we started again when she was ready, we would shut down for two weeks if she needed it.”
Cam revealed Elle and Joel did express some concerns with the executive producer just hours before fleeing, and that their sudden disappearance caused “chaos” on-set.
“We had a promo day that day. It was a Saturday morning, we had 50 or 60 people coming from Sydney. A whole crew with trucks and everything. And we’ve got two contestants missing,” he said.
“So we had to reshoot a lot of stuff, and it was really chaos.”
Elle and Joel are still yet to officially comment.
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