Matty Johns slams Jenny Craig for re-signing Magda Szubanski as its ambassador

MATTY Johns has slammed weight loss company Jenny Craig’s decision to re-sign Magda Szubanski as an ambassador, saying she shouldn’t be paid for “getting fat again”.

MATTY Johns has criticised weight loss company Jenny Craig’s decision to re-sign Magda Szubanski as an ambassador, saying she shouldn’t be paid to go through the program for the second time.

On Triple M Sydney’s The Grill Team show this morning, Gus Worland, Mark Geyer and Johns got into a heated discussion about whether the actor should be “rewarded” for “getting fat again”, after first signing up to the program in 2009.

More: Magda on why she re-signed to Jenny Craig News_Rich_Media: On Triple M Sydney's 'The Grill Team', co-host Matty Johns argues that Magda Szubanski should not be rewarded for signing up with Jenny Craig to lose weight again. Courtesy: Triple M Sydney

This is how the conversation played out:

Matty Johns: … A number of years ago, she [Magda Szubanski] was the face of Jenny Craig. She was paid big money to lose weight, which she did, but shortly after she piled the weight back on. Now, once again, she’s back being paid and rumoured to be around the million dollar mark, million dollars plus, by Jenny Craig to lose weight again.

Gus Worland: A million dollars?

Matty Johns: Now my point to this is that OK, if you want to pay people to lose weight, I can fully understand that because it’s an example to other people of ‘this is what you can do’. But once you’ve lost the weight, and then you put the weight back on, should you be paid money again to get it back off again?

Mark Geyer: No way.

More: Why Magda quit Jenny Craig in 2011

Matty Johns: It sounds to me like it’s rewarding people for being fat, and getting fat again … To me, fat appears like an industry itself Gus.

Gus Worland: It certainly is. There’s no doubt about that. Have either of you blokes ever been properly overweight? Like 10 kilos-plus overweight?

Matty Johns: I’d say probably six or seven [kilos] ... nothing too much. Nothing I can’t exercise or get off.

Mark Geyer: Same, same.

News_Image_File: Actor Magda Szubanski, when she first signed as ambassador for Jenny Craig.

Gus Worland: OK, so for people like me, I’m on a campaign at the moment to get that down, but I need to lose 40 kilos, which is a massive amount of weight. I think it’s very hard for you blokes to be able to understand …

Matty Johns: Nah, nah I understand.

Gus Worland: … To understand losing the weight and then the emotion and that sort of stuff of putting it back on. It’s what everyone else out there is battling to do, so to have someone like her out there to do it is actually an example of what actually is out there, because you do gain.

Mark Geyer: It’s not reality Gus.

Gus Worland: It is reality.

More: Magda’s suicidal thoughts

Matty Johns: Hang on boys, you’re missing the point. My point is, my point is … if a person … I have no problem with Magda going bang, getting the money and then all of a sudden falling off the wagon. People do it all the time with their vices. But then to get money to get fit again, I go ‘man, I don’t know about this’. That was my thoughts when I first saw it.

Mark Geyer: What about the 99 per cent of other people who are overweight and go ‘gee, I wish I could have a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar deal with that carrot dangled in front of me and a team of 10 people pushing me’.

Matty Johns: I don’t mind when people do that MG. I don’t mind when people do it once. But if you put that weight back on, is it rich to then go back and get the money again?

Gus Worland: No but the reality is Matty and MG, the reality is that you do lose the weight and put it back on again, lose the weight. It is yo-yo central.

Matty Johns: Yeah I know that, but should you be paid every time?

Gus Worland: Jenny Craig thinks you should, and over $1 million is a lot …

Matty Johns: But the most important thing, do you think you she should?

Gus Worland: Yeah, I don’t mind her doing it at all.

Who do you agree with in this debate? Should Jenny Craig have re-signed Magda Szubanski as an ambassador? Comment below or talk to us on Twitter @newscomauHQ