REMASCULATED? Johnson

New York scribe Vanessa Grigoriadis learned this the hard way this morning after hypothesizing, in an otherwise tepid think piece on Gawker media, that Page Six was "emasculated" in the wake of the Jared Paul Stern payola scandal. Cue the misogynstic retaliation! After bragging about Page Six's diversity and noting that half the staff is female (note: not the half in control), a writer we're told is none other than Page Six honcho Richard Johnson himself writes, "The male half might take her someplace private and disprove her theory, but we don't like a woman with a mustache."

Even former Sixers are shocked at the personalized Post hit piece, having taken away from the item what any logical reader would: that Page editors Richard Johnson and Bill Hoffman (the male half) would teach Grigoriadis a thing or two by way of assault, except she's just not hot enough. One former Sixer categorizes the boast to Radar as "supremely uncool and unfair." Sources close to the column tell us it was the word "emasculated" that set the editor off, and that boasting of having introduced the world to Paris Hilton is classic Johnson. "He always brags about it," says a source close to the Page. "Everyone there does."

Johnson declined to comment, referring us to Post publicist Rubenstein PR. Steven Rubenstein was in a meeting and couldn't be reached.

Grigoriadis, a Radar contributor, has a history with dissing the Six. In a previous New York story on former Sixer Ian Spiegelman's public feud with Douglas Dechert, she described the inner workings of the column thusly: "Most of what people do at 'Page Six' is sit at their desks at the far end of the Post's newsroom, fielding e-mails and calls while opening packages of freebies sent from publicists."

As Johnson might point out, she was begging for it.

UPDATE: Reached through a spokesperson for comment, New York Post editor Col Allan has this to offer: "Get a life."