According to The Block’s executive producer, Joel Patfull and Elle Ferguson quit because they couldn’t manage a year on a construction site in rural Victoria.
According to the show’s creator, Julian Cress, who has overseen all 18 seasons of Nine’s popular renovation show, the crew was taken by surprise when the Sydney couple departed during the first week of filming in April.
Elle and Joel insist they quit owing to a family emergency, while Mr. Cress told the Herald Sun that it may have been due to more superficial reasons.
Elle, a 36-year-old Bondi fashion blogger, refused to wear a high-visibility work dress instead of her regular fashionable attire, he claimed.
Mr. Cress questioned the couple’s claim that they were required to quit the show to care for Joel’s ailing mother after she suffered a tragic fall at her house in Adelaide.
‘[Elle] appeared a little surprised that she would have to wear a high-visibility vest for 12 weeks on the job site,’ he said.
According to Mr. Cress, he was “dumbfounded” when the pair called him late on April 15 to say they weren’t enjoying themselves and thought the play “was not exactly on brand for them.”
The following morning, he planned to meet them at the building site, but by the time he arrived, they had already disappeared.
According to Mr. Cress, the company paid for the pair to travel interstate for a week before filming began after Joel’s mother was involved in an accident in Adelaide.
He refuted media allegations that Joel and Elle departed because they were unable to obtain clearance from the producers that they could “come and go” from the Gisborne construction site to visit his ailing mother in South Australia.
In April, after only two days of filming, she and Joel, a 37-year-old former AFL player, abandoned their jobs after Trish, his mother, had a neck injury at her home.
Later, the blogger remarked on Instagram, “Wherever you are in the world,” hinting that they were departing.
Regardless of your current endeavour, “Family always comes first.”