Samuel Johnson exposes secret Molly Meldrum feud as he blasts his Logies behaviour

Samuel Johnson’s extraordinary rant against Molly Meldrum has exposed a feud that’s been hidden from the public for six years now.

Actor Samuel Johnson weighed in to Molly Meldrum’s latest public controversy in an explosive radio interview yesterday – and his vitriol towards the man he played in an acclaimed 2016 TV miniseries took many by surprise.

“I’m sick of him doing this, I’m sick of it,” Johnson said, weighing in on 79-year-old Meldrum dropping his trousers onstage at a Melbourne Elton John concert last week.

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Molly Meldrum drops his pants at the Elton John concert.

Molly joins Samuel Johnson onstage at the 2017 Logies.

For Johnson, it appears the ill-advised stunt brought back memories of his own cringe-worthy onstage encounter with Meldrum, when he crashed his 2017 Gold Logie acceptance speech.

The win – for playing Meldrum in the two-part miniseries about his life, Molly – came at a pivotal point in Johnson’s own life. The actor had become a tireless fundraiser for cancer research, starting the Love Your Sister charity in 2012 with his sister Connie, who had been diagnosed with multiple cancers throughout her life.

By the time the Logies took place in April 2017, Connie’s illness had progressed – she would die five months later, aged just 40.

As Johnson explained on-air yesterday, he had planned to use his Gold Logies speech to draw attention to the cause, much like Carrie Bickmore had done in her famous Beanies 4 Brain Cancer Gold Logie speech two years earlier.

Johnson was hoping for a Carrie Bickmore moment …

… But Molly crashed the stage instead.

Instead, Meldrum rushed the stage shortly after Johnson accepted the award – then took over the microphone, giving a rambling and at times explicit speech of his own.

“He [Johnson] rings me from Broome, he said, ‘I’ve been offered this role of playing you in a miniseries,” Meldrum said, as a stunned Johnson watched on.

“[He said,] ‘When I get back home from this bike ride on this unicycle I’ll come across and study you.’

“I said, ‘Sam, you already know me, what are you talking about? I know, you wanna study me, I’ll teach you how to be gay and be gay.’

“He said, ‘F**k off!’”

And on it went, Meldrum speaking for minutes on end as Johnson stood by patiently, watching his moment in the spotlight slip away.

“I know it’s very hard to play an old drama queen like myself, and you did a great job, right. So on behalf of the drama queens of Australia, I would like to crown you also with my gold hat, here it is, well done. Thank you everyone,” Meldrum continued, before the ceremony wrapped up, with Johnson barely able to give any of his own planned acceptance speech.

In the days after, Johnson was sanguine, releasing his own pre-prepared speech online – an emotional, articulate call to action for he and Connie’s cancer charity.

Johnson had planned to draw attention to the cancer charity he started with sister Connie, who died five months after the Logies.

He even defended Meldrum over the controversial moment, saying that while he “must have been loosey-goosey”, it was in fact “a really sweet act”.

“It was [a bit] awkward, but it was classic vintage Molly. It’s Molly doing Molly times a hundred,” he said on The Project.

Six years later, and Johnson obviously felt ready to share his true feelings about what went down that night, in an appearance on 4BC’s Afternoons With Sofie Formica yesterday that left the radio hosts speechless.

Phoning in to the radio show, Johnson revealed that Molly’s Logies moment had come as even more of a shock as the pair were estranged.

“A few years ago I won a Gold Logie for playing Molly. We weren’t getting along at that point, because for six months he’d told me who to thank, and he wasn’t even nominated for the Gold Logie. He’d wanted me to make it all about the network and thank the producers, and I wanted to make it all about cancer,” Johnson revealed.

“We disagreed on that, and we didn’t speak the whole night.”

Johnson earned widespread praise for playing Molly – but now reveals the pair were estranged for months in the lead-up to the Logies. Picture: Ben Timony

He revealed that during the ceremony, late music promoter and friend of Meldrum Michael Gudinski came to him with a request: If he won, could Molly join him onstage to present him with a golden hat. Johnson says he firmly refused.

“I said no, absolutely not. He’s not nominated. They announced my name, I was getting up there to have my Carrie Beanie moment, my million-dollar moment, the moment where I was going to plug the charity … Molly got up, gave me a hat and interminable drivel for eight minutes that nobody understood.

“He took away my moment, and recently he took away Elton John’s moment too. I’m sick of him doing this; I’m sick of it.”

And Johnson doubled down in another radio interview this morning, speaking to Jonesy & Amanda on WSFM Breakfast.

“There’s a lot I haven’t said and I’m trying really hard to be diplomatic but I’ve seen this same type of thing happen over and over again,” he said, when asked about the Elton John incident by the hosts.

He said Meldrum had been “drunk as a skunk” on-stage at the Logies, and asked: “Who’s looking after him? He must not be out in the public during the PM, not with the way he drinks.”

He finished with some stinging advice for the man he played to such widespread acclaim: “Hang up your hat, mate.”