COMMENT Adrian Portelli’s auction day clean sweep gave all of this year’s Block contestants a happy ending, with the billionaire spending more than $15 million buying all five of their Phillip Island properties. But it’s hard not to feel like the show has painted itself into a corner, as contestants have to curry favour with a handful of very rich men in the hopes of finishing The Block with anything to show for their months of hard labour. Portelli admitted it himself in a radio interview yesterday, confirming that he’d even orchestrated the order of the auctions with sisters Maddy and Charlotte, pushing them to go last so that he could deliver them a Block -winning bid to end the season – and his time on the show – on a high.
Why Maddy and Charlotte? Portelli revealed that his girlfriend, Karlie Butler, had picked the girls as her favourites and instructed him to make sure they won the season. Portelli explained that his partner took a shine to the sisters because “they came in late, they were the underdogs, they were picked on, (and) they were bullied.” Those “underdogs” are now $1,650,000 richer thanks to Portelli.
Karlie must’ve enjoyed watching Sunday’s finale as her instructions to her uber-rich partner played out perfectly, but to have the winners of The Block personally selected by a billionaire’s girlfriend is perhaps less of an exciting outcome for the other million-plus Australians who’d watched the entire season. Any lingering notions .