The Block 2024 finale fans’ react: ‘Attention-seeking moneybags’ — Major problem the show needs to address

Who can remember that last time anyone bought a Block house because they liked it and wanted to live in it? The contestants may have left happy — but fans did not.

Claire Sutherland

7 min read

November 12, 2024 - 10:17AM

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The Block has become addicted to attention-seeking moneybags.

Who can remember that last time anyone bought a Block house because they liked it and wanted to live in it?

Instead, viewers have had to put up with an unrelatable cavalcade of gazillionaires (including, most memorably, a fake one) who throw cash around like confetti.

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It was kind of entertaining for a while, but in a cost-of-living crisis it’s just gauche, and gross.

Given one team had plans for a helipad on The Block Gisborne a couple of years ago, it’s fair to say the houses have been unrelatable for a while.

Adrian Portelli with Block producer Julian Cress at the show’s auctions. Picture: Instagram/adrian_portelli

Throw in a bunch of show-offs with more money than the average viewer would see in 20 lifetimes monopolising the bidding and it’s really making a mockery of the idea this is a renovating show.

Last night’s buyer of all five houses, Adrian Portelli, has declared this season will be his last. Serial pest bidder Danny Wallis was uncharacteristically quiet, so maybe he’s done too.

If that’s the case the show might have a major problem. If they overcapitalise with the likes of $30,000 barbecues and $200,000 wine fridges they might find few real buyers left when the billionaires disappear.

The Block 2024 contestants all still went home happy after the auctions … thanks to Portelli. Pictures: Channel 9

But that wasn’t the case last night.

In the end, everyone — yes, even Kylie — left happy, with full wallets, but this is The Block 2024, so it wasn’t before a few hand grenades were thrown.

The fighting began, as is Block tradition, at the meeting to reveal the reserve prices and determine the auction order.

For once, the teams weren’t crying over their reserves. The prices were all set at $1,950,000, and with most teams expecting something with a two in front of it there were relieved faces all round (except from Ricky and Haydn who opted not to look at theirs).

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The auction order, on the other hand, was as usual, a s***fight.

Maddy and Charlotte volunteered to go last, and with no other teams keen on taking that spot it was theirs. But all the other teams wanted to go first, with Courtney particularly vehement that first place shouldn’t go to Brad and Kylie.

“We’re screwed if the worst house went first,” Courtney said, prompting daggers and swearing from Kylie.

Kylie and Brad are none too pleased about hearing their house described as the worst.

“That was aggressive the way it came out,” Kylie said.

“We weren’t necessarily talking about your house,” Grant countered.

Reader, they were talking about Kylie and Brad’s house with Courtney later also casting aspersions on the couple’s claim they had more than a dozen registered buyers.

She wants to avoid leaving the auction order to a lottery, claiming it was too high risk.

“What if Kylie and Brad go first. It’s going to f*** everyone up. We know that this 14 (buyers) aren’t real. It’s selfish,” she said. “Right now the public perception of House 4 is not the best. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to say that.”

“They don’t even know who their buyers are,” Grant adds.

Meanwhile, Kylie is uncharacteristically hiding around the corner choosing not to engage.

“Now I’m getting the mean girls treatment that I supposedly gave to them,” she says. “House 2, 5 and 1 are now in a treaty and it felt very scripted and I actually came away from it feeling very attacked.”

Brad refuses to buckle and accept an auction slot low down in the order.

With Kylie and Brad digging their heels in, Courtney’s biggest fears are realised as the order goes to a lottery.

Fears unfounded, as it happens, because Courtney and Grant are ecstatic to get their preferred place starting the auctions, followed by Kylie and Brad, Mimi and Kristian, Ricky and Haydn and Maddy and Charlotte.

And it proves an auspicious order, with Courtney and Grant’s house selling for $3.3 million, giving them a $1,350,000 profit.

Kylie and Brad’s place sells for $2.6 million, leaving them with $650,000 to take home to Cairns.

More interesting than their auction though, is the sight of them sitting next to Scott Cam as the auction takes place, after Kylie had previously declared “I hate this man so much” of the Block host before fleeing the show barefoot.

That particular elephant isn’t discussed, though Cam can’t resist a quick dig, saying “Sure you want to stay? Thought so” as the bids climb.

The teams celebrate Courtney and Grant’s profits.

The whole running away down the road, accusations of infidelity, host-dissing episode seems to have been swept under the carpet with no obvious hard feelings between Kylie and Mimi, or indeed between Kylie and The Block itself.

“We’ve been through a lot but we’re very grateful,” Kylie tells Cam. “We’re very appreciative for the opportunity. It’s been a dream, it has.”

The only time Kylie really addresses the drama of the previous episodes is when she alludes to a producer about her past behaviour.

“We’ve been through a lot but we’re very grateful. It was worth it. Unfortunately I was a different person here but we made it.”

Then it’s on to Kristian and Mimi, who do seem more willing to discuss the warts and all behaviour Mimi put on full display during her time on the show.

Kylie and Brad with Block host Scott Cam, some weeks after Kylie declared of him “I hate this man so much”.

To quickly recap, she ridiculed her husband for crying, refused to help him with physical labour, partied and drank then slept in while he worked and seemingly flirted with Brad.

In any case, it’s all apparently water under the bridge.

“It was quite the test, obviously we were three months married,” she says. “It kind of broke us but now we’re stronger than we’ve ever been and found new love for each other. That to me is priceless.”

Their house sells for $2,930,000 giving them a profit of $1,030,000.

Ricky and Haydn watch their auction completely in the dark about what their reserve is, discovering after it’s all over that they’ve made $750,000, thanks to a sale price of $2.7 million.

But it’s the late-coming sisters Maddy and Charlotte who leave the biggest winners. Their house sells for $3.5 million, meaning the sisters leave with a profit of $1,550,000 plus $100,000 for winning the show.

Maddy and Charlotte arrived four weeks late and left with more money than anyone.

It turns out regular Block bidder Adrian Portelli has bought all five houses, using a buyer’s agent for some to cover his tracks.

“That was a message that that was my last appearance on the Block and I thought I’d go out with a bang,” he says.

He may have gone out with a bang, but fans of the show weren’t thrilled with the night as a whole, with many getting on to call the show ‘rigged’, and lament that Portelli just chose who he wanted to win.