“We’re being excluded a little bit, I guess, because of what’s being shown on TV,” Sara, 31, explains. “For example, I sent a message to everyone in our WhatsApp group saying: ‘I just wanted to apologise. We went into every Monday saying a lot of positive things about your rooms and obviously only the negative things are being shown.’
“I thought I was being the bigger person by apologising and I saw that everyone had read the message, but no-one responded,” she reveals emotionally.
And while Jess is sympathetic to Sara, she understands why people are a little distant now.
“She’s got my support but it’s hard, even though it’s edited – the words are still said,” Jess, 33, points out. “It’s hard for some of the contestants not to take it to heart.”
But this week on air it’s a different story. Jess reaches out to Sara and Hayden when they are left homeless.
“When Hayden and Sara needed somewhere to sleep, everyone was silent. My heart broke a little,” Jess reveals.
“I got left out a lot at school so I know what that feels like. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through that kind of emotion so that’s why I was like, ‘of course you can sleep at our place.’”
Jess also points out that Sara had a reason to complain this week, but didn’t, when the others noticed Hayden was avoiding physical labour.
“There’s not much of her and she was lugging the tiles up and she was struggling,” Jess explains. “You’d think if Hayden saw her struggling, he’d give her a hand. That’s the mother of his baby. At least carry the tiles for her. For the first time on The Block, I thought Sara should be yelling and she’s not,” Jess says.
But she also admired Sara for standing up for her man when others questioned his work ethic.
“You could see the little tigress come out in her protecting Hayden, and that was really beautiful,” Jess says. “I’d die on a sword for my tribe and I think that Sara has that same philosophy. It was something that I recognised in her that I really respected.”
There is no doubting Sara is fiercely loyal, and she has admitted that she’s struggled with the trolling she’s received since the show began.
“It’s really disheartening,” Sara tells New Idea. “Even though we are the ‘villains’, the trolls are really taking their toll now. We’re blocking and deleting them but if they say something about how I am as a parent or if it’s anything about Harlow, that’s when I’ll bite back.”
For the full story see this weeks issue of New Idea, on sale now.
