The Block's Paige breaks silence on 'horrific' experience before quitting the show

The Block’s Paige Beechey has officially broken her silence about her “horrific” experience on the Channel Nine reality show after she and her fiancé Jesse Maguire left the competition in Monday night’s episode. The WA-based couple made the emotional decision to put themselves first and quit the series, becoming the first team in the show’s history to exit midway through filming.

While Paige initially posted a question box on her Instagram Story earlier this week encouraging fans to ask anything they want to know about The Block, she uploaded three lengthy videos on TikTok on Wednesday evening. The 27-year-old said she had received “hundreds of questions” but decided after watching Monday night’s episode that “everyone probably deserves this video more”.

RELATED:

• The Block's Maddy and Charlotte react to 'disappointing' move from co-stars

• The Block host's blunt message after couple quit: 'You wanted this'

• The Block 2024: Are Paige and Jesse still together?

Paige claims the show edited her to make her 'look crazy'

Paige says she and Jesse were “smooth sailing” in the first two weeks of the competition and they had a great relationship with producers, who called her an “Energizer Bunny” and commended her on handling the pressure. However, she claims that what was shown on TV was a very different story thanks to “post-production”.

“Nothing broke my stride, there were no tantrums, no sulks, no arguments, no nothing for two weeks, and that's obviously not what you guys saw. That wasn't the narrative that they pushed because in those first two weeks, they just completely made it something that was not,” she shares.

“They did that by literally putting full sentences in my mouth, and that's what we like to call Frankenbites. They were chopping bits and bobs from everywhere and just smooshing them together so everything was in the context that they wanted, but it was glaringly obvious that things weren't matching up.”

Paige claims that the show clipped their comments from “master interviews” throughout the entire competition and included them in the first two weeks to build up a certain narrative that she was “crazy”.

“They were just blatantly cutting conversations to make me look crazy. So we were quite frustrated with the first two weeks of how we were depicted,” she continues. “We were just sitting there like, ‘What?’.”

The 'good moments' viewers never saw

While the show focused on plenty of arguments and tense discussions between Paige and Jesse, she says it’s a “shame” viewers didn’t get to see any of the “good moments” they had during filming.

“They didn't show any footage of us with anyone,” she argues. “We always hung out, we went to places together. They didn't show any footage of us with our builders, because, no, that would be way, way too nice, because we were a**holes to everyone, right?”

This comes after House 1’s builder Zak Sydenham of ZS Custom Builds defended the couple and told Yahoo Lifestyle that he had a “great working relationship” with them.

“When we were all on-site, we all would be cracking jokes and laughing. There was a lot of light-hearted fun which helped bring a bit of normality to the Block site,” he said. “They definitely had their moments, as did every couple, but it was never as bad as it's being portrayed.”

The 'apology' that happened off-air

Paige and Jesse copped plenty of backlash on social media for how they spoke with the representatives for Kinsman Kitchens and Wardrobes on the show. However, Paige reveals that there was a lot more that took place during their meetings which wasn't shown on TV.

“I know a lot of people had a problem with the Kinsman thing but oh my god, if I was so bad and Kinsman did nothing wrong, why were Kinsman allowed to ask a producer if they could apologise to me off camera?” she remarks.

“I really respected the apology, it was water under the bridge, and we moved on because I was so excited to work with Kinsman.”

Paige opens up about 'horrific' filming experience

In the second part of Paige’s tell-all, she alleges an “absolutely horrific experience” in week three when the contestants moved out of their tents into their completed guest bedrooms.

“Without prior briefing, no warning and absolutely no consent, the crew start coming into our rooms in the morning to film us whilst we're sleeping,” she alleges.

Paige goes on to say this was a particularly troubling experience for her because she has a “background with sexual assault”. Yahoo Lifestyle has contacted Channel Nine about Paige's video, but there is no suggestion producers were aware during filming of Paige's past experience of sexual assault.

She also shares that she’s “not a great sleeper” and often experiences sleep paralysis where she wakes up “really confused”, and began developing “really bad PTSD symptoms” during the third week of filming.

“You wake up in your bedroom, it’s pitch black, and you have three black figures, two or three figures standing over your bed, and it's terrifying. And that’s how you wake up,” she describes. “I'd be frozen in my bed, I would be paralysed, and I would be having like, no joke — and I feel like really ashamed of this for some reason — I would have full-on hallucinations.

“I started to spiral very quickly from these mornings because some of the times Jesse wasn't even in bed with me and I was just alone. So most mornings in week three, I was trying to fight off big episodes of derealisation, lots of confusion, anxiety, and the worst of all was my level of paranoia and all these sorts of scenarios that were playing in my head.”

Paige reveals she tried to “punish [herself] into being normal and being present” during filming but in reality, she was “losing it” and “going a little cuckoo”.

“I really tried to push all my mental health to the side, but anything was setting me off. Any little thing — I was nervous, anxious, paranoid all day, but I really did try my hardest to be okay,” she continues. “I had these conversations with Jesse, he told a producer what I was going through, and then the morning visits stopped. By the time the morning visits stopped, it was just, sadly, a little too late for me. I was off the deep end and drowning.”

The truth about her 'big argument' with Jesse

Paige says she and Jesse had “quite a big argument” on the Friday night, which is three days before they eventually quit, which is where she confessed she was “spiralling” and wanted to leave.

“I didn't want to be there, I wasn't feeling like myself, I was incredibly heightened, I was incredibly scared every day as well, and just dealing with those emotions on top of all that pressure and stress was sending me,” she details.

“So we had that argument, and that's when a producer decides to come in ... saying, ‘This isn't the first time we heard you fight at this time of night’. First of all, the time wasn't even correct on the TV, and we never fought at nighttime. We fought during the day, like we just didn't fight at nighttime.”

She adds that while she and Jesse were bickering quite a lot and their arguments were “very emotionally charged”, their relationship wasn’t crumbling and it “wasn’t the end of the world.”.

“Look at the absolutely crazy scenario we're in, and then actually put real mental health on top of that. It's just too much,” she remarks.

Paige calls out the show's 'pathetic email'

Paige alleges that the only time The Block’s producers contacted her about her mental health during her final two weeks on the show was via a “pathetic get lost in your inbox email”, and she expected more than that from the producers.

“The Block capitalises on your personal life and totally exploits it,” she claims.

SHOP:

• The award-winning mattress that's 'like sleeping on a cloud'

• The Aussie company making beauty more accessible and less of a burden

• The stylish summer shoes that keep your feet comfy all day long

Paige issues a strong message to the network

Paige ended her final video by saying that she feels for the past contestants who have also been affected by the show, the young women on the crew who are “sick of the boys club”, and the audience who “now have to watch a show driven from such a place of arrogance and ego”.

“The Block is over to me,” she says. “All I want to do now is implore the network that when this show continues, there needs to be serious reform on how you prepare contestants.”

She added that she will continue to watch the season to support her cast members, their ‘replacement team’ Maddy and Charlotte who she and Jesse are “really close with”, and their builders.

“I also want to end this video with a caveat on majority of the crew,” she concluded. “They are so wonderful, they are so lovely ... And I think it's really exciting that the young people on the crew will hopefully work their way up and get to the top one day, and they're really good people. So I think that will be a really nice breath of fresh air for this show.”

Yahoo Lifestyle has contacted Channel Nine for comment.

Mental health support for yourself or a loved one can be found by calling Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978, or the Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800. Online support is available via Beyond Blue.

Want the latest celebrity news? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.