A week after hearing they had walked away with just $20,000 profit for all their painstaking work on The Block, Sarah-Jane Wilson and Tom Calleja have finally let the news sink in.
“Everything was stacked up against us,” Tom, 34, admits to Woman’s Day.
“It’s been almost the wettest, coldest winter in history in Victoria. We were suffering material and labour shortages, the real estate market is horrible and interest rates are through the roof. I mean, nothing was looking good for any of us.
“Everything was stacked up against us,” Tom said.
(Image: Nine)“It sucks we didn’t win any money from it, but we’ve moved on. We kind of just accepted it from the minute we heard it.”
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“Of course it’s disappointing,” Sarah-Jane, 30, adds. “But we were never promised anything and it just didn’t work our way. We’re not the kind of people to live in disappointment.”
The married couple from Victoria were frontrunners for most of the competition, but despite making next to no profit, the pair say they wouldn’t have changed a thing.
“Absolutely nothing. No regrets. Zero,” Tom reveals. “I reckon we had the best time out of everyone on the show. We didn’t go there for rubbish.”
Tom and Sarah-Jane’s house.
(Image: Nine)Adds Sarah-Jane, “We just went there to have a good time, try and build the best house possible to try and better ourselves. We didn’t come out with $800,000 but we’ve still got $20K and by the time we sell our car, we’ll have $100K. That’s not a bad day in the office.” ‘
THEY PLAYED A GAME
“It’s a game at the end of the day,” Tom says of winners Omar Slaimankhel and Ozman “Oz” Abu Malik’s “millionaire friend” Adrian Portelli, who many believe was planted at the auction to drive up the price, allowing the Sydney team to walk away with a record-breaking $1,686,666.66 in total prize money.
“I don’t think it’s rigged. If I was friends with someone with a lot of money, then why not get them involved?” he adds. “We just don’t have those connections.”
WATCH: The Block’s Tom and Sarah – sold. Article continues after video
After experiencing a disappointing end to their Block journey, Sarah-Jane and Tom say that given the chance to return for an All Stars season, they’d have to seriously consider it.
“It’s not as simple as just saying ‘yes’ and going on the show,” says Tom.
“We put our lives on hold for almost nine months. It is a huge commitment for us and all our families as well, who help look after [one-year-old daughter] Cleo. So we are just going to get on with our lives and whatever comes at us, comes at us,” he says, before adding that they have yet to hear from host Scott Cam or any of the show’s producers about a possible return, in any capacity, next year.
“We put our lives on hold for almost nine months.”
(Image: Nine)“If we wanted to do an All Stars,” Sarah-Jane adds, “we’d be going back purely to try and make money, and even still I’d be like, ‘Oh god, I can’t do this.'”
When reminded that they could follow in the footsteps of past contestants Deanne and Darren Jolly – who initially made $10,000 in 2014, only to return a year later and walk away with $935,000 in profit – Tom is horrified.
“Oh god,” he moans. “Don’t use them as an example – they’re divorced!”
