Block judge speaks up about ‘frustrating’ edit

Viewers watching final night time’s season premiere noticed Whittaker take a beat earlier than room judging started, telling his fellow judges Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer that he had one thing to inform them.

Visibly emotional, he confessed that he could be “breaking apart the band,” and wouldn’t be capable to be a part of them as a full-time decide this season.

His longtime colleagues embraced him and informed him he had their full assist – after which the moved on to judging rooms, with viewers not informed the rationale Whittaker’s resolution.

Solely those that observe Whittaker on social media or noticed media protection of his announcement virtually a month in the past would know what was occurring: He’d made the choice to “reduce” on work to assist his associate David by way of sick well being.

In a submit to his Instagram followers after the episode had aired final night time, Whittaker expressed his frustration that viewers hadn’t been given any context for his on-air announcement.

Sharing a clip of the second because it went to air, he wrote: “There’s nothing extra irritating than an unexplained resolution or an incomplete narrative – particularly the place well being and household are involved.

“That is what went to air tonight on the primary episode of The Block’s nineteenth season, my seventeenth. I broke the information to Shaynna and Darren that I’d be unable to hitch them every week and defined my causes. It was an emotional dialog for all of us. Sadly these vital causes didn’t make the reduce so right here goes.”

Whittaker defined that he’d “chosen to place household first,” and assist David, his associate of 20 years, by way of “some severe and ongoing well being points.”

“Melbourne actual property professional Marty Fox can be standing in for me on the weeks I can’t be there, however I’ll nonetheless be popping up occasionally over the following 12 weeks. The excellent news is that David is making nice progress, my Block household has been totally supportive of my resolution and I’m wanting ahead to returning to The Block full time for the present’s twentieth anniversary season in 2024,” he continued.

Whereas we is likely to be seeing much less of Whittaker on this season of The Block, he’s definitely not holding again on the subject of the judging – giving one couple a withering critique and a paltry rating of 4 throughout Sunday’s season premiere.

The judges all agreed that couple Steph and Gian’s try at a Toy Story-themed youngsters’s bed room utterly missed the mark, but it surely was Whittaker who delivered the most effective line of the episode, pointing to a lamp within the room and asking in the event that they’d misinterpreted the “Buzz Lightyear” transient as “Unhealthy Lightshade” – a zinger that acquired a shocked response when it was relayed to the contestants.

“Oh my god … that’s so brutal,” stated one.

In the meantime, The Block host Scott Cam has let slip a serious change to the present’s guidelines that can be in power throughout this season.

In scenes but to be aired, he’ll give the contestants the present’s complete manufacturing schedule, so all of them know from the beginning of the construct what rooms they’ll be doing every week and might plan accordingly.

“We’d by no means try this earlier than. But it surely’s such a giant construct that we thought, we have to give them a heads up to allow them to plan for the longer term,” Cam revealed in an interview with 2DAY FM’s Hughesy, Ed & Erin final week.

Initially revealed as ‘Nothing extra irritating’: The Block decide Neale Whittaker’s downside with present’s edit