The Block star, Adelaide’s Eliza Paschke, opens up about being physically and sexually assaulted on podcast, Try Before You Die

An Adelaide reality TV star has opened up for the first time about being sexually and physically assaulted after a night out in Melbourne.

Adelaide’s Eliza and Liberty Paschke starred on the 2023 season of reality TV show, The Block. Picture: Supplied.

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Adelaide reality TV star Eliza Paschke has opened up for the first time about being sexually and physically assaulted after a night out in Melbourne.

The Block favourite said she was “incredibly lucky” she wasn’t killed during the incident, which happened just over six years ago on Australia Day 2019.

Paschke, then aged 32, had been drinking with friends at a bar in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, when she decided to catch an Uber home at about midnight.

That’s when everything went “black” for The Block runner-up.

“So when I come to, it’s like someone has used a defibrillator on me. I jolt awake and everything is as clear as day, and I am gasping for air. I’m splayed out laying down on the back seat of a stranger’s car,” she said on her podcast, Try Before You Die, with sister Liberty.

“There’s a man laying down directly on top of me. His full body weight is holding me down. My arms are pinned underneath him.”

“I start screaming. I’m saying, get the f**k off me. I’m just letting out these blood-curdling screams of terror and anger.

The Block sisters from SA, Eliza and Liberty Paschke. Picture: Supplied.

“I’m just wailing, and I’m literally fighting for my life. And then bizarrely, after a while, this scumbag of a man, I think literally just realises I’m going to be too hard to overcome, and he gives up. And he stops, and he slowly gets up.”

Paschke, who was half-naked during the ordeal, managed to escape the man and run off, eventually catching a taxi home.

She said she wasn’t raped but was left bruised and battered from the traumatic encounter.

Paschke reported the incident to police who said it was likely her drink was spiked sometime during the night with the illegal date rape drug GHB.

The Adelaide-raised star said she takes medication which, when mixed with certain substances, can make for a “lethal” combination.

“What I take away from the ordeal was that I was really unlucky on that day, but also I was incredibly lucky at the same time because I could have been killed. I truly and honestly could have,” said Melbourne-based Paschke, who won just over $1m with Liberty on The Block in 2023.

Police have been unable to find the alleged offender but were able to extract a male DNA profile from her bra.

Eliza and Liberty Paschke starred on the 2023 season of The Block. Picture: Supplied.

Eliza and Liberty Paschke won just over $1m on the reality show. Picture: Supplied.

Now aged 38, Paschke said by speaking out now, she hopes to become an “advocate for change”.

“I obviously wish this hadn’t happened to me and that I didn’t have this experience to talk about, but I hope conversations like this are a catalyst for change. And I desperately urge people to report these crimes,” she said.

“Sh*t, it was hard, but I’m so bloody glad I did it, because we’ve got to try and hold this scum of society to account and try to stop them hurting other people.”

Originally published as The Block star, Adelaide’s Eliza Paschke, opens up about being physically and sexually assaulted on podcast, Try Before You Die