Jolly good win on The Block
After 10 drama-packed weeks full of blood, sweat and tears, Darren and Deanne Jolly emerged triumphant on last night’s nailbiting season finale of The Block Triple Threat, which broke records by awarding the largest combined prize money in TV history.
Following a lacklustre auction result on the last series of the show, where they only pocketed $10,000 for their efforts, the married Melburnians can barely believe they’ve just won $935,000.
“We’re in shock actually, it’s taking a lot of time to process it,” Deanne toldAAA just hours after the auction.
The Jollys aren’t the only contestants who left the auction with a big boost to their bank accounts, with Josh Terrett and Charlotte Ekas receiving $810,000, Tim and Anastasia Ielasi earning $755,000 and Ayden and Jess Hogan winning $665,000.
“We are absolutely shell-shocked at the results,” Deanne said of the outcome.
“It was completely different, an extreme opposite to last year. Last year was devastating, people were crying and nobody knew what to say. This year everybody was hysterically happy and didn’t know what to say for the opposite reason.”
Despite a tumultuous build punctuated by multiple clashes with the judges, foreman Keith Schleiger and their fellow contestants, all of the controversy and hard work was worth it, according to the outspoken mother of two.
“We would do it again in a heartbeat for this sort of outcome, we’re so lucky,” Deanne said.
“We are just so thrilled and grateful that we won so much money; it just feels like an obscene amount.”
Darren added: “Everyone has had drama over the series but we all just came together last night and we were so happy that everyone walked away and made money and nobody was disappointed.”
It’s been a big year of highs and lows for the experienced renovators, who had to contend with a serious health scare when Darren was hospitalised with a brain tumour just two weeks after the renovations were completed.
In the wake of surgery, which revealed the tumour was a benign cyst, the former AFL footballer is now back in fighting form and is excited to spend some quality time with his family.
“The first thing we spoke about is going on a big spontaneous holiday,” the 33-year-old said of how he plans to spend their sizeable prize money. “We really want to thank our girls for letting us do it and share it all with them. We need a chance to take a breath and nut out what we want to do.”
