A Former Healthcare CEO Who Harassed A Teenage Boy For Wearing A Dress To Prom Is Suing Kathy Griffin For “Doxxing” Him

April 29, 2022 / Posted by:

Last year Sam Johnson, a health care company CEO from Franklin, Tennessee, was fired from his job after going viral. Sam was filmed harassing a teen boy for wearing a prom dress. The video, which was originally uploaded to TikTok, shows a confrontation between the fully grown adult man and then-high schooler Dalton Stevens. A smug, smiling Sam says shit like, “You look like an idiot,” and, in response to Dalton calling himself gorgeous, “Are you?”

The video spread like wildfire and Kathy Griffin retweeted it, writing “this is Sam Johnson in Nashville, Tennessee.” She tagged his company, @VisuWell, mentioned he was married to Jill Johnson and “they may reside in Franklin, Tennessee,” and added, “it seems like he’s dying to be online famous.” The video made a ton of headlines, and, soon enough, Sam was canned from VisuWell. Now, exactly one year later, Sam has filed a federal lawsuit against Kathy, claiming it was her tweet that caused the incident to go viral. It was her tweet that got him fired. And, you know, not his own extremely shitty actions.

The original TikTok (which has since been deleted, so methinks Sam’s lawyers also like to harass teens), was taken on April 24, 2021. It was filmed by Dalton’s date, Jacob Geittman. Apparently, the teens and their friends were hanging out at the Harpeth Hotel in downtown Franklin before their prom. Sam was also there for a dinner. He didn’t know the teenagers, but, being an unrepentant homophobe, he had a problem with Dalton’s red dress and confronted him. Jason told Heavy that Sam came up to Dalton and asked, “Why are you wearing that? You shouldn’t be wearing that.” Then Sam allegedly started “going on and on” and throwing insults at the teen: “‘You look disgusting, you look ridiculous, you look like an idiot. Men shouldn’t be wearing this.’ All this homophobic banter.”

That’s when Jacob says he began to record. The video begins with Dalton telling Sam, “I chose what I wanna wear, so you can fuck off!” Sam shrugs, and responds, “Is that right?” From behind the camera Jacob says, “Think he looks gross? Looks disgusting?” An angry Dalton storms off, and Sam follows, saying, “You look like… you look like an idiot.” At one point he raises his hand, presumably to smack Jacob’s phone away, but he misses and hits Dalton instead. Then we hear a bunch of adults begging Sam to leave the kids alone. He just smirks and shrugs. Dalton comes back and says, “I’m sorry, but I’m gorgeous.” Sam sarcastically replies, “Are you?” Off-camera, a woman asks Dalton if he’s alright, and suggests that the group of teens leave and go have fun. Dalton responds, “He’s [Sam] the one that’s following us. We moved! Like, we moved from over there to over here!”

Jacob’s TikTok was uploaded the same day as the incident, April 24. The Twitter version of the video was uploaded on the evening of April 25. Kathy Griffin shared it a couple of hours later, at 1:45 AM on April 26. Perez Hilton and People magazine also shared it that day. Here’s Kathy’s initial tweet:

Here are prom pics of Dalton and Jacob (FYI they don’t follow each other on Instagram, so I guess their teenage love didn’t last):

So now for Sam’s lawsuit. The Tennessee Lookout says that earlier this week, Sam and his wife, Jill, sued Kathy Griffin, claiming it was her tweet that caused the incident to go viral and lead to his firing. He’s seeking an unspecified amount for “emotional distress, mental anguish and other damages.” The couple blames Kathy for Sam getting fired and Jill’s interior design business suffering. The suit also alleges Jill was subjected to “online harassment, including rape and death threats.” Apparently, this is all Kathy’s fault:

Griffin, the lawsuit said, “opens the digital Floodgates to the video clip and embarks on a malicious campaign to terminate Mr. Johnson’s employment contract.”

The suit also says that VisuWell was cool with their CEO being homophobic until Kathy got involved:

“But for Ms. Griffin’s first tweet on April 26, 2021, the Video Clip and the April 24 incident would not have gone viral on the internet,” the lawsuit said. The video “would have been quickly forgotten and would not have been used by VisuWell as a basis to terminate Mr. Johnson’s employment contract.”

The lawsuit claims Johnson had been assured by VisuWell’s chairman that the company “had no plans to terminate Mr. Johnson and would stand by him despite the social media publication of the video clip” the day before Griffin’s tweet.

Sam took to his (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-masker, bible-thumper, Trumper) Twitter to announce his very important lawsuit:

And Kathy responded on her social media:

She also retweeted this thread which dives into the lawsuit:

Let’s hope Sam’s cry-for-attention lawsuit gets thrown out immediately. Kathy just beat cancer, let’s not expose her to all the toxic bullshit that spews out of Sam’s mouth in a court of law!

Pics: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages.com/TikTok

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