‘Molly is very upset with me,’ Sam confesses, amid plan to make profanity pay

WHEN the man in the hat heard that Molly star Samuel Johnson was going to hang up his hat, he was none too pleased.

‘Molly is very upset with me’

HE COPPED heat from his sister for using profanities in a Facebook post to tell the world he was quitting acting to dedicate himself fulltime to her charity, and Molly Meldrum called him an ‘idiot’ for the move.

Now Molly miniseries star Samuel Johnson has turned his potty mouth into a positive — mounting a swear jar fundraising campaign for the pair’s breast cancer charity, Love Your Sister.

Johnson’s terminally ill sister, Connie, earlier this week publicly called her brother out for not letting her know about his retirement plan, berating him for swearing in the post, telling him to “wash your mouth out with soap, young man, and get on with the job”.

Johnson said he’d tone down the language, but stood firm on his decision not to return to acting until the charity has raised $10 million for breast cancer research.

Now, he has challenged others to put their money where their potty-mouth is, via another post on the Love Your Sister Facebook page, in which he also confessed music guru Molly Meldrum pilloried him for this decision to retire.

“Perhaps stupidly, I thought people would be quite pleased to hear that I’d hung up my hat to raise 10M (sic) for Garvan, but I’ve actually been scolded a fair bit,” Johnson wrote.

“Molly is very upset with me (‘you can do both, you idiot’), my agent wasn’t the least bit impressed (‘Um ... OK then’) Connie is pleased I think but, weirdly, seems to be pretending to be a little cross and my ‘other sister’ Hilde (a woman who volunteers at the charity) is so devastated she can’t even talk about it with me other than to say ‘I just can’t believe the idiocy of it’.

Thumbs down: Molly Meldrum doesn’t agree with Johnson’s acting retirement plan, telling him ‘you can do both, you idiot’. Picture: Andrew Tauber

“Well I’m sorry that my blatant selfishness and potty mouth have offended (and I was tipsy, not drunk) but I think all this raises a fair question: In the face of breast cancer killing our women and all, is it really my language that is so offensive?

“It got me to thinking. I’m not the only one who swears at bad stuff like cancer. What if we had these Swear Jars all over the country? I’m not the only potty mouth out there, right? So let’s turn it around? Bad words for good! If you really think about it, it might even encourage people to swear more often, creating an even more offensive environment for my prudish sister to bear!

“I will run this campaign myself, through my gmail, I’ll source the jars and organise the Authority to Fundraise forms to be sent out and I’ll follow through personally with every single participant. And in a few months’ time, we’ll see just how much my potty mouth is worth to cancer research.

“As a nation I reckon we could swear our way to a cure! [e-mail] if you want a LYS Swear Jar in your home, office, workplace or crèche. Actually, maybe not crèches.”

Love Your Sister supporters quickly seized on Johnson’s plan. Within hours one had designed a label, and another had offered to print the swear jar stickers for free.

Johnson himself declined direct interviews — his agent said he was unavailable at the moment, and the man himself said he’ll have “plenty to say in a couple of months”.

But as one supporter observed on the Love Your Sister Facebook page, he might do well to pursue a career in politics, given the spin he’s played this week.

Originally published as ‘Molly is very upset with me,’ Sam confesses, amid plan to make profanity pay