Tuesday, in his Page Six column, editor Richard Johnson made a veiled rape threat against writer Vanessa Grigoriadis. The attack has several insiders buzzing about a frightening incident at Johnson's own $50,000, four-day bachelor party thrown by Girls Gone Wild meatstick Joe Francis.
According to several sources, days before Johnson's April 8, 2006, nuptials to Sessa von Richthofen, the editor and a half-dozen of his friends were crashing in the living room of Francis's $25 million, 13-bedroom estate in Punta Mita, Mexico, nursing hangovers when the porn auteur came home and disappeared into a bedroom with a reluctant young woman. Eyewitnesses claim that a few hours later the young woman burst out of Francis's boudoir, groggily crying, and yelling, "That motherfucker raped me!" She staggered off alone after loudly threatening Francis that her boyfriend in Oklahoma was a lawyer who would "sue the fuck" out of him.
Johnson and fellow revelers were left dumbstruck. But Francis—who has been accused of procuring underage prostitutes, promoting sexual performances from children, drug trafficking, racketeering, and rape—was quick to calm their nerves. "Guys, relax," he told Johnson and others, according to witnesses. "We're in Mexico."
In the much-discussed Page Six item, Johnson suggested that he and his male co-editor might give "the hirsute" Grigoriadis a similar treatment for daring to suggest in her New York magazine cover story that the column had become "emasculated." Curiously, in the same column, he also did a solid for his old buddy Francis, dutifully reporting that the girls who had accused the beleaguered T-and-A titan of plying them with alcohol before illegally videotaping them in Florida had recanted (presumably without being paid to do so). This wasn't the first time Johnson used his column to promote his sketchy benefactor: Back on March 28, Page Six hailed Francis the next Hugh Hefner and floated the idea that he might soon buy Playboy. To date, no sale has materialized.
Johnson is due to appear in court Thursday on a June 2 DUI charge.
UPDATE: Richard Johnson responds, via a Post spokesperson, "I never saw anything of the sort."
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