Last night, Omar and Oz were crowned the winner’s of The Block 2022.
The pair sold their house for an eye-watering $5.6 million and were absolutely thrilled to walk away with a $1.6 million profit; the largest profit anyone’s ever made during The Block’s 18 year long run.
WATCH: Omar and Oz win The Block
However, many Blockheads are suggesting that Omar and Oz’s auction was rigged.
Adrian Portelli, a businessman with a net worth of roughly $8 million who was referred to as ‘Mr Lambo’ on the show, was the first to bid on Omar and Oz’s property.
He bidded $4.5 million; an aggressive bid much higher than the $4.08 million reserve price, which led to eventual buyer Danny Wallis paying over $5 million for Omar and Oz’s house.
Mr Lambo’s bold bidding strategy has led many fans to theorise that Omar and Oz roped in Adrian to place dummy bids that’d drive up the final price of the house.
Omar and Oz have denied these allegations. While appearing on Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa this morning, Omar and Oz were asked point blank whether Adrian was a dummy bidder.
“That couldn’t be [further] from the truth,” Omar replied.
Radio host Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli then asked whether Omar and Oz were friends with Adrian.
Omar clarified that he and Oz shared a mutual friend with Adrian but other than that, they didn’t really know Adrian.
“We reached out to everyone that Oz and I knew; we asked so many people to come through and see the house.”
“We actually reached out to a mutual friend and they kind of suggested that [Adrian] might be interested and he wanted to come have a look at the house. And when he did come, he absolutely loved it. He said he loved his views from our house,” Omar said.
The Block co-host Shelley Craft later denied the rumours on Today Extra with Richard Wilkins and Sylvia Jeffreys, confirming the legitimacy of Adrian.
“You’ve got two titans in the room, being Danny Wallis and this Adrian character, who were going toe-to-toe,” she said.
“I don’t know if you’ve got mates that are willing to chump up a million bucks for you, but I certainly don’t.
“He [Adrian] wanted the home and he really did take it to battle [but] Danny came out on top. It was a battle of the titans for our first auction and an extraordinary result for the boys.”
Adrian has also denied that he was a dummy bidder; he took to Instagram to address the wild conspiracy theory.
“For everyone questioning the legitimacy of the auction, I was a genuine buyer with every intention to purchase that property,” Adrian wrote on his Instagram story.
“Nobody is to blame for what happened. It’s an auction. Believe it or not but if you’ve got two people that genuinely want the property, a bidding war will commence.”
“I’m happy to show my bank account [to] anyone that suggests these were dummy bids,” Adrian concluded.
