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Luke and Josh Packham say The Block producers fabricated drunk storyline

Breath tests, drunk contestants, major rule breaks - and not a penalty in sight. What’s going on with The Block this season?

Bella Fowler
5 min read
August 16, 2021 - 9:03AM
Love Island twins abandon The Block

The Block contestants Luke and Josh Packham claim parts of Sunday night’s episode in which they disappeared off site for a night of drinking were “totally inaccurate”.

But Channel 9 has responded with a damning statement, rubbishing claims the boys’ antics were embellished.

RELATED: Love Island twins abandon The Block

The former Love Island stars maintained they ‘stayed in a hotel’, and weren’t out all night partying.
The former Love Island stars maintained they ‘stayed in a hotel’, and weren’t out all night partying.

The twins were scolded by foreman Keith and ordered to “rest off the alcohol” after they vanished from the show’s set on a Friday evening, returning close to 10am the next day and both registering above 0.00 in a breathalyser test, with Luke blowing 0.035 and Josh returning a result of 0.017.

The incident led to fellow competitors speculating they had been swept up in an “all nighter” and avoided the site while they were still intoxicated.

Viewers fume over second rule break

It was the second time in their first week that the brothers and former Love Island contestants were shown to hav broken one of The Block’s key rules. Earlier in the week, they were shown getting a tradie to help them with painting their room - Block rules stipulate only contestants can carry out all their painting.

Another strict rule: Contestants must sleep on-site throughout the season. The brothers protested that they’d opted to stay in a hotel room for the night because they didn’t find their living quarters on-site comfortable enough. As foremans Dan and Keith pointed out, it instantly put them at an unfair advantage against the rest of the contestants, roughing it in tents on a construction site.

Despite these two major rule breaks, the twins scored no penalty on their first room reveal, and finished the week in a close second place, with nothing but some playful scolding from host Scott Cam - which had many viewers seeing red:

Twins hit back at ‘stitch up’

Now, Luke has claimed to news.com.au the storyline was conjured up by producers after a botched reading.

“That’s the funny thing, we didn’t even need to sit it out at all,” he said of Keith’s instructions to sober up and check back in at noon.

“That breathalyser, we blew in it about 10 times, it was just a cheap deal and it never actually showed a proper reading. Sometimes it would show zero, sometimes it would show another number, it was so inaccurate,” he explained.

“One of the producers ended up saying to Keith and Dan ‘Oh, it’s not working, so just tell the boys to sit out for a couple of hours because they’ve blown over’ which never happened.”

RELATED: Block viewers fume over big rule break

The Block twins say the breath test seen in Sunday's episode was ‘inaccurate’.
The Block twins say the breath test seen in Sunday's episode was ‘inaccurate’.
They were ordered to rest until noon and come back for another test.
They were ordered to rest until noon and come back for another test.

Hitting back at the bold claim, executive producer and co-creator of The Block Julian Cress told news.com.au: “For a start, we never fake anything on The Block. We don’t need to when we’ve got contestants like Josh and Luke wandering around.”

He continued: “Crazy stuff just seems to happen with those two. But for clarity, we’re TV producers, not mechanical engineers, so faking a breathalyser is way beyond our skillset. But if someone can show us how …”

The sentiment mirrors that of the other contestants of the show, who weren’t buying Josh and Luke’s story that they stayed out until 12.30 after “a few drinks at the pub” then decided to stay in a hotel because their living quarters were flooded.

As the day went on, Luke was struck down with stomach problems and eventually whisked off to hospital with food poisoning, leaving the other contestants sniggering, doubting it was anything other than a bad hangover.

“They did an all-nighter,” Georgia confidently claimed to producers on hearing Luke had fallen ill.

Luke, however, maintains he was treated for food poisoning, explaining how it all unfolded.

“It was bad timing. Terrible timing,” he laughed.

“We had a fridge installed and throughout the week and it kept turning on and off while I had a burger in there. So I’ve eaten this burger and within half an hour just started feeling really really sick.

“I probably would’ve preferred a hangover rather than being that sick to be honest,” he added, explaining: “Josh and I have had our fair share of big nights, but that was very very tame. There was no hangover at all.”

The twins waltzed in from their hotel stay at 9.45 in the morning.
The twins waltzed in from their hotel stay at 9.45 in the morning.

During the episode, Ronnie and Georgia were buzzing from the mystery of the missing team, determined to get to the bottom of their disappearance.

When asked about the dramatic reaction, Luke was quick to call-out returning star Ronnie for throwing them under the bus.

“I bet that was Ronnie. Ronnie just loves a bit of camera time. He’s very calculated with what he says,” said Luke.

“He loves to make a punchline to make an advert and whatnot. That’s just Ronnie on camera, he’s strategic in what he says, but off camera he can be really nice. We discovered that pretty early,” he added.

Josh chimed in: “At the end of the day it’s a competition – if they see something and they think they can get you for it, most likely they will. That’s just part of it.

“There was plenty of competitors drinking on site regularly as well. So if we did it on site or off site there’s no real difference.”

Before he’d seen the episode, Luke guessed it was Ronnie who had encouraged the ‘over the top’ reaction.
Before he’d seen the episode, Luke guessed it was Ronnie who had encouraged the ‘over the top’ reaction.

But at the crux of it all, host Scott Cam and foreman Keith were adamant the boys had broken yet another rule from ‘The Block Bible’, with Cam explaining: “Block rule number seven, contestants must sleep on site.”

During the episode, Keith had explained: “Every other house has got exactly the same facilities as you have right now. Think of the other contestants, you’ve just spent the night in a luxury hotel, while they’ve been camping … it’s got to be an even playing field.”

Luke and Josh, however, say that off screen, there was no indication they had actually broken an existing rule.

“Afterwards they just said ‘No one’s ever NOT come back’, but there was no rule,” Luke said.

“We were pretty much told beforehand that we could do whatever we want. There was no rule about how long you can be off the site, we weren’t told about anything like that.”

Luke and Josh say they were kept in the dark about the sleeping rule – claiming it didn’t even exist.
Luke and Josh say they were kept in the dark about the sleeping rule – claiming it didn’t even exist.

He added: “It’s quite common that people will knock off after work and go out for a couple of drinks, and then rock up to work the next morning.”

Despite the scandal, Luke and Josh’s ‘modern bachelor pad’ guest bedroom was the second-highest scoring room by just half a point, narrowly losing out to rivals Ronnie and Georgia.

The judges called Luke and Josh's room 'luxe and sexy'.
The judges called Luke and Josh's room 'luxe and sexy'.

The leaderboard has the couple on 24.5 points, Luke and Josh with 24, Tanya and Vito and Jesse and Kirsty even with 23, and favourites Mitch and Mark on 22.5.

The Block continues tomorrow night from 7.30 on Channel 9

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Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/luke-and-josh-packham-say-the-block-producers-fabricated-drunk-storyline/news-story/315ebf8415fb4ed31fcade3d92207d12