After months of controversy, Elle Ferguson and Joel Patfull have finally made their reality TV debut on the new season of The Block.
The influencer and her former AFL star partner — who famously quit the Gisborne set of the reality series after just two days — initially appeared ready to take on the challenge during the show’s first episode on Sunday night.
But while the couple were set on convincing block viewers they were there to play, one fellow contestant was instantly suspicious of the pair, and she didn’t mince words.
Revealing she recognized beauty entrepreneur Ferguson “straight away,” team one’s Sarah-Jane fumed to producers: “She’s already famous, she’s got 600,000 followers on Instagram, she’s got sh*tloads of money, why are they here?”
The Victorian mother-of-one, who is competing with her husband Tom, had a lot to say about influencers in a pre-show interview.
“Social influencers… Some I respect obviously,” she began.
“Some make a huge career out of it! Look at your Kim Kardashians and your Rozalia Russians and people like that … Bec Judd! Good on them. But people who just go on shows to (boost their) social media, I don’t have time for that sh*t. Like, don’t waste my time.”
Sarah-Jane wasn’t the only person to make their judgment on the pair known, with host Scott Cam throwing out veiled digs in voiceovers throughout the episode.
In one, I described Ferguson as a “self-confessed global influencer and beauty entrepreneur”, referring elsewhere to the genetically-blessed pair as “Bondi babes”.
It comes after Cam suggested in several interviews that the duo left The Block 48 hours after arriving because they weren’t up to the challenge, not because of Patfull’s mother’s ill-health as was previously reported.
am has been busy sledging the pair for throwing in the towel, calling it “p*ss poor” and “unAustralian”, amid reports the duo flew to Adelaide to car for Patfull’s mother after a nasty fall.
Speaking to news.com.au in the lead up to the Tree Change season premiere on Sunday, Cam revealed the couple upped 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,” Scott said.
During episode one, Ferguson showed some signs of finding the competition difficult, though no more than the other teams.
“I’m not gonna lie… it was a little intimidating,” she said on walking into the building site of House Three.
“It was a demolition site, and when I say demolition site, you couldn’t see the ground.”
After night one, the influencer told producers: “I did think someone was going to come and maybe sey here’s a heater… but no… it was fresh.”
Promos for the next episode see Cam expressing his shock at the couple’s abrupt exit.
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