The Block judge Shaynna Blaze has come to Luke and Jasmin’s defence – just hours after accusing them on the show of plagiarising their winning children’s bedroom.
The interior design guru, 57, shared a lengthy statement to Instagram after Tuesday’s episode in which she defended her remarks but also urged viewers to stop trolling the couple – and Jasmin in particular.
She even acknowledged the possibility that the WA couple had copied their room without even realising it, saying that ‘lines blur’ sometimes when the teams are frequently looking to social media for inspiration.
Support: The Block judge Shaynna Blaze (pictured) has come to Luke and Jasmin’s defence – just hours after accusing them on the show of plagiarising their winning children’s bedroom
‘We’re living in the world of Instagram and Pinterest so it’s inevitable that sometimes the lines blur between “taking inspiration” and direct copying,’ Shaynna began.
She added it was ‘imperative that we all consider other designers’ intellectual property rights when we are designing for profit’.
In light of this, Shaynna said she had no choice but to ‘have a difficult conversation’ with Luke and Jasmin after noticing the ‘many similarities’ between their renovation and the Barefoot Escapes Airbnb designed by The Designory agency.
Speaking out: The interior design guru, 57, shared a lengthy statement to Instagram after Tuesday’s episode in which she defended her remarks but also urged viewers to stop trolling the couple (pictured on The Block) – and Jasmin in particular
While she stood by her position that House 4 had crossed the line, she also made it clear there was no excuse for trolling.
‘Please don’t direct any negativity towards Jasmine on social media, and instead let’s all take a look at our own appreciation of design and other designers, and our personal understanding of the difference between imitation and plagiarism,’ she concluded.
On Tuesday’s episode of The Block, Shaynna accused contestants Luke and Jasmin of cheating during a tense confrontation.
After meeting the team for the first time, she asked host Scott Cam if she could have a private word with them.
Shaynna then told Luke, 35, and Jasmin, 36, that she had some concerns about their winning kids’ bedroom, after discovering they’d completely ripped off their design.
‘I remember saying on [Sunday’s episode], the bunk and everything, I remember saying, “I may have seen that before,”‘ Shaynna explained.
While Shaynna initially thought they had taken inspiration from ex-Block contestants Kyal and Kara, she later discovered truth after doing some ‘fishing’.
‘It felt familiar, and then I found this,’ she said, before pulling up a series of comparison photos on a tablet.
Luke and Jasmin’s idea for their children’s bedroom had come from the pages of interior design magazine Inside Out, with Shaynna pointing out all the similarities.
‘Spotted wallpaper, bunk, animals, saffron, Aztec, grey, white sheer,’ she listed, pointing out that ‘the only difference’ was the chair and how they put it together.
But Jasmin didn’t seem surprised by the similarities, and confessed she had shown everyone the same photo during the renovation, calling it her ‘inspo’.
‘It wasn’t a secret,’ added Jasmin.
‘So, you’re calling it inspiration,’ continued Shaynna. ‘What happens is inspiration is one thing, completely taking someone’s idea and making it your own is another.’
She also reminded them that they were in a competition with rules on plagiarism.
‘You haven’t changed it up enough. It’s not fair on the other contestants that they can win a room, with money, on someone else’s ideas,’ added Shaynna.
While Luke insisted they had ‘put their own spin on it’, Shaynna maintained that it was still too similar.
‘If you scroll on Instagram, everyone’s doing the same s**t… It’s like, yeah, we’re “original”. As original as the next house,’ said a defiant Jasmin.
Shaynna made similar remarks about the copycat renovation to TV Week on Monday, saying: ‘I thought, “I’m just going to have a look” – and I found an identical one [online]. There are one or two teeny-tiny tweaks, but it’s literally a carbon copy!
‘We’re not into copy-and-pasting. And not only that, it takes months and expertise to put all that together – the research, actually finding all those pieces.
‘When you present it in a competition and say, “I put this together”, it’s like, “Well, no you haven’t! You just copied somebody else’s hard work and claimed it as your own.”‘
Jasmin was quick to deny the cheating claims, telling the publication that the design of the room was a product of a ‘mood board’ she had created.
She also claimed that if she were to cheat, she ‘wouldn’t have done it so openly’.
Sunday’s episode saw Luke and Jasmin win the kids’ room reveal with 30 points, followed by a tie on 29 with Sarah and George, and Jimmy and Tam.