Block ‘villains’ Sharon and Ankur call out Scott Cam over wine challenge

Fed up with their “villain edit”, Sharon and Ankur are now demanding Scott Cam reveal what really happened behind the scenes of the show.

The Block contestants Sharon and Ankur are continuing to feel the fallout from this past week’s challenge controversy – and the couple are now calling on the show’s host Scott Cam to publicly reveal what really happened behind the scenes.

In case you missed it, the hit reno show teased something of a new “cheating scandal” earlier this week, when contestants took part in a challenge at a winery in a bid to win $50k worth of wines to add to their finished home.

Each couple had to mix several different wines together to try and replicate the winery’s premium red blend – a tricky challenge for most, involving a lengthy trial and error process.

Except, that is, for Sharon and Ankur, who began by quietly googling the wine they had to replicate, finding the exact percentages of each ingredient they needed to add, then finishing their attempt in less than 10 minutes.

They went on to win the challenge, with a professional wine taster marvelling at just how close they’d come to replicating the wine.

Many viewers weren't happy about Ankur and Sharon googling their way to a $50k win.

As Scott Cam pointed out, it wouldn’t have been cheating if they’d googled the wine – nobody had told contestants they couldn’t.

But Sharon and Ankur denied having done so, instead repeatedly insisting that they were wine connoisseurs who happened to have drunk that exact blend “every day” through lockdown (despite it costing $250 a bottle).

A deeply suspicious Cam caught them out during Wednesday’s episode, when he organised an impromptu wine taste-testing among the contestants. Self-professed wine expert Ankur couldn’t tell the difference between a rose and a red, and didn’t know if he was drinking French or Australian wine.

As those embarrassing scenes played out this week, the couple rushed to social media to defend themselves – and call out the show.

Sharon and Ankur hit back

The couple have complained they’re getting this season’s ‘villain edit’.

As debate raged, the couple insisted their actions were not against the rules in their first post addressing the controversy.

“There are absolutely no rules that we cannot use our phones or search the net/google anything. This part of the challenge required us to create a 2022 blend of the wine, which doesn’t exist,” they wrote.

“We took a chance and thought it couldn’t be too far off the 2015 blend, notes which were readily available. THAT was our strategy, and it worked.”

And as they continued to cop heat over the challenge, they appealed directly to Cam, claiming they had told him "the whole time” that they had googled the wine’s tasting notes.

They also called out the show over texts between them that were shown on screen, which they said were faked.

“C’mon Scotty, don’t be shy, we told you and the winemaker we had the tasting notes the whole time! A ‘cheating scandal’ needs to involve cheating, and you said it wasn’t? Also, I don’t call my Wife babe, hmm who’s sending these texts?” they wrote.

Ankur and Sharon claimed these texts, shown on screen, were fake.

And in a post to her own popular Instagram account, actress and model Sharon revealed that they had switched off comments on their socials “because we don’t feel like being threatened over a reality TV show. Cheers for the #villianedit mates!”

One person who knows how Sharon is feeling: Tanya Guccione, the contestant at the centre of last season’s cheating scandal. “I see u girl! And I’m here with you cheering you both on! Hold your head up high!” she wrote in response to Sharon’s post.

Scotty gets the last word – for now

Scott Cam saved one more jab for the couple during Sunday’s judging.

Just as the controversy seemed like it was dying down, Cam couldn’t resist getting in another jab at the couple’s expense during Sunday’s judging.

At this point, several days on from the challenge, Sharon and Ankur were still sticking firm to their story that they’d won because they were wine experts with a deep understanding of how to mix various blends together perfectly.

Ankur and Sharon face the music.

The couple nearly took out another win on Sunday, their master bedroom and walk-in wardrobe just missing out to Tom and Sarah-Jane’s by half a point.

“What a shame you don’t have 50 grand worth of wine to put in there,” Cam said as he congratulated the winning team.

“You know what you should’ve done? Googled the recipe!”

Omar and Oz crack up at Scott’s jab.

The other teams were clearly stunned at Cam calling out Sharon and Ankur for the first time, collapsing into laughter at the jab.

Sharon and Ankur, however, were less amused.

“Smart-arse,” muttered Sharon.

“He was always going to give it to us,” Ankur whispered to his wife.