Viewers watched on Tuesday night as Jason accused WA couple Georgia and Ronnie of directly plagiarising the styling of their winnings kid’s bedroom from design store Norsu Interiors.
“Even the two prints on the wall are exactly the same,” he spat as he confronted the couple.
But Georgia was quick to defend the originality of her design.
“I have got to defend myself here,” she snapped. “I am highly passionate about that bedroom I did.”
“I one hundred and fifty per cent did that whole room on my own. I did not have help from them. And I take pride in my interior design abilities and I won’t let you say that they helped me on that.”
But the accusations didn’t stop there.
Jason said that he had noticed a “couple of extra people” leaving Ronnie and Georgia’s house in recent days, believing them to be FIFO contractor friends the pair had enlisted to help with the renovation.
As only competing couples are allowed to reside on site, Jason was quick to call them out on this.
“I think they should be leaving The Block at night, going and staying somewhere and coming back here in the morning,” he said.
“I think it provides an unfair advantage because if you had to pay for them – a living away from home allowance – to stay in a hotel like everyone else in Australia it would roughly be about $420 a night.”
The argument quickly escalated into name calling and Georgia stormed back to the worksite in tears.
“All they did was just attack us then,” she vented to Ronnie. “That’s all that was. I don’t f***ing appreciate that.”
After the episode went to air, the couple took to Instagram to explain themselves.
"To all the haters, trolls and keyboard warriors... Try promoting what you love instead of bashing what you hate,” they began the lengthy post.
“We pride ourselves on playing an honest & competitive game. We would never lie, cheat or steal (despite what other teams / viewers may believe), that's just not who we are, nor is it an example we'd like to set for our children.”
“When it comes to designing our rooms we draw inspiration from Pinterest, blogs, design magazines and retail stores themselves,” they continued.
“Creating an 'on trend' room that will appeal to buyers is playing a smart game 👊🏼. It's not rocket science that elements of our room are similar to pics found on the @norsuinteriors Instagram page, we purchased most of our product from their insanely beautiful store...NEWS FLASH that's what you call 'visual merchandising' 🤦🏼♀️."
After listing all of the “unique” products featured in the room that they felt were “overlooked” Ronnie and Georgia went on to thank their “amazing build team” for their work.
They ended the post with: “Now to the haters, trolls and keyboard warriors, we have a really simple, non negotiable BLOCK & DELETE policy - if you don't like us, it's simple, don't follow us. Try promoting what you love instead of bashing what you hate 💫”
Many couldn’t help but weigh in on Ronnie and Georgia’s predicament, slamming their fellow contestants for their treatment of the couple.
“So glad other people could recognise it for what that was… bullying!” one wrote.
“Jealousy is a curse, haters are gonna hate. Who cares… Keep on doing what you do best,” added another.
This article first published on New Idea.
