‘IT’S BEEN TOUGH’ The Block judge Shaynna Blaze shares her secret health battle
‘The Block’ judge on her journey to hell and back
Shaynna Blaze has been keeping a secret. The popular interior designer may be a face we welcome into our living rooms regularly thanks to shows such as The Block and Selling Houses Australia, but the 56-year-old has been silently fighting a battle while maintaining the utmost professional appearance. “It’s been a long road,” she tells WHO. “It’s one of those things where you don’t know it’s really bad until you fall over. I had adrenal fatigue, I had a lot of things that were happening that people wouldn’t know about.” While she’s now happier and healthier than she’s ever been, Blaze, who split from her husband of 18 years, Steve Vaughan, a year ago, says it’s been a long road to recovery. “The past three years have been quite tough,” she admits. “I spent two years in and out of doctors’ and immunologists and all that sort of thing. It’s really only been since Christmas last year
that everything I’ve been working on has been starting to come together.”
The TV presenter reveals a slew of horrendous food allergies greatly impacted her life.“I got to the stage where I couldn’t eat anything,” she says. “My lips would swell, my tongue … I was on a plane and I was pretty close to an anaphylactic shock. I’m lucky work was fantastic and my team were amazing. I really had to go back to basics and there wouldn’t be anything I could eat that didn’t make my tongue and lips swell, for two years. I got to the stage where I had two doctors and two naturopaths looking at my tests and saying, ‘So how did you get out of bed today?’ and I would always say, ‘I just have to. I just have to’. Getting through the day for a couple of years was really tough.”
While it’s been a testing time for the mum of two, she says she didn’t feel the need to share her story while she was in the middle of getting her health back on track, despite questions about her shrinking figure. “Why would you shout it from the rooftops,” she asks. “But so many people are asking me and I can see a huge change. My body shape has gone back to what it was meant to be.”
These days Blaze swears by a low-carb anti-inflammatory diet, yoga and reformer Pilates to keep her body and mind in working order. “Working on my inner strength has worked on my outer strength,” she says. “If you’re looking good, that’s great, but if you’re feeling good, that’s the secret.”
The Block judge’s svelte frame and glowing skin haven’t gone unnoticed by fans. But that doesn’t mean she’s been cut any slack by the fiercely opinionated viewers. “I get called nasty or jealous or get told I’m on a warpath,” she admits. “I’m actually doing what I’m being paid to do, and I know what I’m talking about. I walk the walk as well as talk the talk and it’s ludicrous but at the same time, small minds.”
Blaze says she tries to turn a blind eye to any backlash on social media after Sunday night episodes, but she’s disappointed people target her more than fellow judges Darren Palmer and Neale Whitaker. “It’s a little bit sexist,” she says. “The amount of times Neale will message me or put a Tweet out saying, ‘Um guys, I actually said that comment, stop slamming Shaynna it was actually me’. It is annoying that people say I’m criticising. It’s not, it’s constructive feedback and giving solutions. Look at what my title of this show is, a judge. I come in to judge a competition and that’s what it comes down to. Some people say, ‘Oh I don’t like what she says’. And it’s like, ‘You know what, if I came into your workplace, I may not like what you say too’.”
Blaze is also frustrated by the ongoing rumours that the relationship between the three Block judges is strained after six years working together. “How boring,” she says, laughing off the reports of a feud. “I stayed at Darren and Olivier’s [Darren’s husband] house two weeks ago so there’s a massive feud there! Neale, Darren and I are such a good team. We’re great friends and we have so much respect for each other. We’re happy to argue because we all have different views on things and it’s a very healthy conversation.”
While she may be a judge on the show, Blaze reveals that watching The Block as it goes to air each week is the first time she discovers the drama that went down behind the scenes. “People Tweet me saying it’s rigged, that we’ve been fed lines. It’s the total opposite,” she says. “We don’t know anything that happens during the week!”
That includes controversial contestant Jesse Raeburn who has slammed Blaze this season. “I never knew until I saw it on TV,” she admits. “I judged this whole season not knowing what he said. We don’t get told so we aren’t coloured by anything going into judging. I had no idea!”
So, what does she really think of Jesse? “You know what, Jesse? Keep running your mouth off mate, you keep going,” she says. “There’s confidence and there’s confidence.”