Why Johanna Griggs won’t stop calling out mags
AFTER being a tabloid target for years, Johanna Griggs has made it her mission to call out fake news — here’s why she isn’t stopping anytime soon.
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JOHANNA Griggs has blasted women’s magazines claiming she is the target of fabricated stories about her personal life.
Earlier this week the House Rules host took Woman’s Day to task after it printed a “rubbish” article about her new “farmhand diet” titled “Joh’s rules for dropping 5kg FAST!”
In a scrathing post on Instagram, Griggs said the magazine deserved “The Moronic Award for Made Up S**te”.
The problem with the article was Griggs hadn’t lost 5kgs, hadn’t spoken to the magazine and had never heard of the so-called farmhand diet.
“People are coming up with the most hilarious interpretations of what the farmhand diet could be — you know you bench press cattle and then you throw hay bales,” she told news.com.au.
“It was actually hilarious the reactions to it.”
Griggs joins a growing list of Australian celebrities such as Russell Crowe, Samantha Armytage and Karl Stefanovic who are using social media to their advantage and calling out fake news.
“Social media has a good and a bad side to it,” Griggs said. “But one of the really great sides to it is that you actually have a voice now and you can speak directly to the public and let them know (the truth).”
Some of the untrue articles which Griggs named and shamed last year included one which claimed she was “back together” with her ex Gary Sweet (“So ridiculous that it’s laughable,” she wrote on Instagram at the time), and another which bizarrely claimed she had saved husband Todd Huggins’ life after he had a routine operation.
“I think it’s about the eighth time I’ve done it now,” Griggs said. “I will always be really positive about someone if they have done a great interview or article … but what I won’t do is sit back now. I’ve had so many years where I’ve never been able to refute something, I will call them out on it.”
In a watershed moment last year, Rebel Wilson was awarded $4.7 million in damages after a jury found Bauer Media — publisher of Woman’s Day — had defamed the actress by painting her as a serial liar.
But withWilson now heading to the high court after being ordered to repay $4.1 million of the payout, Griggs thinks the magazines haven’t learnt their lesson just yet.
“A lot of people ask how (what the magazines write) could be legal and why don’t you sue them,” Griggs said.
“You kind of go well, an article like the one they did on me is certainly not defamatory in any way, it’s just ridiculous. You can’t sue someone for just being ridiculous.
“I think Rebel definitely had reason and cause to be able to sue them and look at what has happened there, she is ending up in the high court with the threat of the cost of the legal case that she might have to pay.”
Originally published as Why Johanna Griggs won’t stop calling out mags