The Block All-Stars winner Amity Dry, who originally appeared as a contestant on the first season of the show back in 2003, has opened up on an experience with the “vile and predatory” Don Burke, when he visited her and husband Phil at home to film a segment.
Speaking out as part of the ABC and Fairfax joint investigation into Burke’s conduct, Amity revealed that prior to their first meeting, she had heard “some pretty hair-raising stories” about him from the crew, most of whom had worked with him before. She said:
“[As] a naive 25-year-old who had grown up watching Burke’s Backyard, I was horrified by them. Stories of how obsessed he was with talking about sex, particularly animals having sex, and how he would proposition women and bully and harass his staff with sexual innuendo and inappropriate language.”
Before Burke arrived at her apartment to film his interview, Amity says she was taken aside by the show’s producers and warned to ignore his “bad language and inappropriate jokes”, and most importantly not to be alone with him.
She described his conduct on the day of the interview as “vile”, recalling jokes about bestiality, references to her body, and uncomfortably sexual comments about teenage schoolgirls who were seen passing by on a nearby ferry. She added:
“[What] I remember more than anything was that after he left, my husband and I said we felt like taking a shower and scrubbing the house. It was though a vile and predatory energy had filled it and we felt dirty for the experience. And then when the story went to air I remember telling everyone we knew how our real experience was nothing like it looked on TV and seeing how others felt the same shock about him we once did.”
Speaking out about the current situation surrounding the disgraced Burke, Amity Dry said that he “deserves to be named and shamed for who he really is”, and expressed gratitude that those women who endured his conduct in the workplace have “finally been given a voice.”
