I don't know, Ronnie can be a pain at times no doubt, but other refs have handled these situations much better in the past. The whole swearing thing was a shambles and seemed to me like the ref was determined to try and get back at Ronnie for the replaced white fiasco earlier. He was actually being detrimental to Trump's play by starting on Ronnie at that point. He could have left it until after the frame if he was so convinced Ronnie had done something wrong.
I think there's something in the idea that he's acting up for the Netflix documentary though - in the semi final after a session he went back his room and said the camera man could come in, but when the BBC guy started to enter he practically pushed him away and said, "Not you". And some other camera guy was allowed in.