Ricky's TRAGIC SECRET

LOSING HIS BEST MATE CHANGED HIM FOREVER

- Phillip Koch

With a cheeky smile and muscles in all the right places, Blockhead Ricky has fast become this season's resident heart-throb, but the Victorian plumber has also had more than his fair share of heartache.

He left home at 16 and turned his back on his parents amid allegations of a toxic home environment, only to lose his best friend seven years later.

Lachy Beaton was killed by a drink driver at age 23 and his death changed Ricky forever.

"It took me a very long time to stop going to his grave and crying," Ricky, 34, tells New Idea.

"I was the same age. People kept telling me I needed time, and I had other mates who had lost their mates, and they said to let time heal.

"I stayed busy living off the fact that I had to do all the things we wanted to do together."

"I was upset for months and I wasn't sure I was ever going to get over it. But it turned out all those people were right, eventually time passes, and I knew Lachy didn't want me sitting there at his tomb crying."

Ricky says a big reason why he's doing The Block with close friend Haydn was to honour Lachy. His death in 2012 at such a young age taught Ricky to take every opportunity life presents.