On the latest episode of The Block, Chantel and Wyatt decided to stay on the show, but not before they made their frustrations known to host Scott Cam.
The drama boiled over after the Gold Coast team were wrongly accused of blowing their budget. Scotty had told the couple on Sunday night’s room reveal they had blown out their budget with a total spend of $20,700 — putting them almost $12,000 over budget.
The pair were instantly confused, asking Scott how he had determined that sum, and were left worried the mistake made them look financially irresponsible on national television.
Then Chantel and Wyatt refused to return to the work site and stopped answering calls, with Wyatt particularly angry about the potential damage to his professional reputation. They insisted they wouldn’t continue unless production acknowledged what had happened.
It was eventually revealed the overspend wasn’t their fault at all: their builder’s invoice had accidentally been entered twice by production. Scotty announced this to all the teams on Monday’s episode that Chantel and Wyatt had been right.
Scott and executive producer, Julian Cress, apologised profusely for the blunder to the team.
The couple wouldn’t accept their apology, as Chantel noted that they had raised concerns as soon as it happened — but their pleas were ignored. Wyatt went as far as to suggest that Sunday’s budget reveal should have been recorded again to erase the incorrect sum from ever airing. “The whole thing could have been reshot,” Wyatt told Scott.
After cooling off, Chantel and Wyatt eventually agreed to stay — but the drama left them behind schedule and their relationship with the show and Scotty left seriously strained. In a separate exclusive interview, the couple described how production allegedly responded when they questioned the $20,700 figure.
The Block viewers react to the Chantel and Wyatt budget controversy
Plenty of The Block viewers had sympathy for the fitness couple, who were put on blast on Sunday night despite not doing anything wrong. “I believe Chantell and Wyatt,” read a Reddit post.
“I truly think that Chantel and Wyatt’s crashout was valid. I think that there is something 100 per cent off with what happened. I don’t think it was a mistake, I feel the show was recording them to be gym junkie jerks and the villain of the show to spark up drama. Accusing them of spending more than 20k feels like a producer stunt to further make them out to be low people.”
Another comment said that while they didn’t believe the whole saga was fabricated to vilify the couple, they still had sympathy for them. “Now I’ve seen it, I don’t believe it was a stitch-up, but I understand why the contestants are upset, and why they want to go.”
However, not everyone agreed that Chantel and Wyatt’s refusal to move on was warranted.
“Scotty says sorry we stuffed up… and [Wyatt] continues on with his well-rehearsed outrage speech,” wrote a Reddit user. “Such a dumb unnecessary fake issue. His whole, I have a business, I can’t believe the whole of Australia just saw that… newsflash, the whole of Australia weren’t gonna see it for another six or so months and it easily could’ve been edited if it wasn’t so contrived.”
As another said the ‘mistake’ didn’t justify Wyatt’s dramatic response. “The reaction wasn’t justified. House 5 got told they weren’t worthy of The Block and turned up. People go on about edits, well whatever is shown, happened… From what I saw, it was an aggressive person, who is that worried about the way he looked on TV that he would happily intimidate people to look better.”
Exclusive: Chantel and Wyatt tell Chattr whether they planned to leave The Block
So did the team actually plan on quitting The Block before they got an apology? Chantel exclusively told Chattr they were already out the door.
“We had our bags packed. We were ready to go,” Chantel revealed.
“The reason we didn’t go in on Monday morning was because we had decided to leave. We had spoken with production about organising our flights home and things like that, and they really, really wanted us to stay. That’s why it got to the point of having a conversation and doing an apology and things like that — but we were completely set on leaving.”
In particular, Wyatt wanted to quit, telling Chattr that the team only stayed because Chantel decided to give the show another chance. “I left it up to Chantel. I said, if you want to stay, I’ll stay. But I was set on leaving,” Wyatt told Chattr.
“Chantel convinced me to stay.”
The Block airs on Sundays at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.
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