The Block 2018 couple Jess and Norm reveal secret separation
Beloved The Block pair Jess Eva and her partner Norm Hogan have revealed they are separated.
The Sydney-based duo, who starred on the 2018 season of the Channel 9 renovation series, quietly called off their engagement three years ago, Eva told New Idea.
'Norm and I split three years ago now. But we still love one another, we're still the best of friends and we are still family,' Eva, 40, told the outlet.
'There is no drama, but we both thought it was a bit up ourselves to publicly announce we had separated at the time.
'It was really just an accumulation of small things and pressures.'
Eva, who shares two young children with Hogan, went into further detail about how they came to the decision to mutually part ways.
'One day, we were both sitting in our backyard, having a beer in front of the fire pit, and I just said, 'Norm, I love you, but we can't keep going like this',' she said.
'He said, 'I love you too – and I agree.''
Hogan, who also participated in the interview, said the couple still live together in Sydney, though sleep in different bedrooms.
'The only thing that has changed about how we feel about each other is our relationship status,' Hogan, 47, said.
The pair, who never married, first met more than a decade ago outside a nightclub.
Eva had publicly praised her ex-fiance in December 2022 after Hogan said he'd been seeking treatment at a mental health facility to deal with the ongoing impact of childhood sexual abuse.
'So, so proud of this guy, my best mate in the world, Norm,' Eva wrote on Instagram at the time.
'You spoke your truth, that you were so scared to do for so long. I pray your voice will help those that feel voiceless. I hope that your courage to speak out will inspire those to realise there is hope.'
During The Block finale in 2018, Eva and Hogan made a cool $209,000 after selling their St Kilda apartment at auction for $2.859 million.
Just two years later, they revealed they'd squandered all of their prize money.
Speaking on Triple M's Moonman in The Morning at the time, Eva said the winnings went on swimming pools, gambling and helping friends.
'The first thing we bought was two above-ground pools and we handed them out to our friends like lollies,' the mum-of-two revealed to co-hosts Lawrence Mooney and Chris Page.
'We just had friends who had been wanting a pool for ages. The above-ground pool salesman would have thought we were loony!
'They're $5000 each, so there's $10,000.'
Eva, who co-hosted Triple M's breakfast show in Sydney alongside Page and Mark Geyer and Chris Page from 2019 to 2022, went on to reveal a chunk of the cash prize went on a big bet at the tennis.
'Remember when Ash Barty was starting out on the tennis circuit, and we didn't know she was going to be a winner and she was playing against Maria Sharapova?' asked Eva.
'We put thousands on Maria Sharapova, and it was just when Ash Barty was starting her winning streak, and I just forgot that Maria was just coming back from her drugs ban … I'll never forget Norm's look after Maria lost the second set, he just had tears in his eyes.'
In comments to news.com.au after the show, Eva further revealed they also paid off a friend's car loan, bought two lawnmowers and a block of land on an island 'without ever going to look at it'.
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