The 2 Johnnies said they still don’t know the fate of their RTE radio show as they opened up on the ‘horrendous’ week after they were accused of airing ‘sexist’ content on their platforms.
The podcasters turned presenters known as Johnny Smacks and Johnny B, found themselves in the centre of controversy last week after they were accused of airing ‘sexist and insulting comments’ in their Spotify podcast, and clips used on their social media platforms to promote their new 2fm radio show.
The pair apologised for any upset caused, but after huge public backlash, RTE announced the duo would remain off air pending ‘a review of the matter’ - just three days after kicking off their brand new 2FM show ‘Drive it with The 2 Johnnies’.
Opening up about the situation on Monday, the deflated comedy act admitted they were taken back by the ‘reaction’ and further explained what went wrong.
Johnny Smacks said: “It’s horrendous. I woke up on Thursday and turned on Ireland AM.
“I was watching it as normal and they were going through the front pages and there’s me and you on the front page.
“My stomach just sunk when I read the headline. I was like ‘Fuck sake, this is not what we set out to do’.
“It’s awful. It has been a f*cking shit week.”
Discussing their future on radio, they added: “We are obviously taken off air on 2fm, we don’t know what is going to happen there.”
But they said the biggest upset came seeing how it affected their family and colleagues.
“It is shit for everyone,” they said on their latest podcast on Monday morning.
“Shit for us personally, for everyone in the podcast and who work for us, for our families like, jesus.
They went on: “It is horrendous like. It is an awful feeling to have to ring your mam and have her crying down the phone and your sister and people saying it to her.
“It is a horrendous thing and I hope nobody has to go through what we went through for the last few days.”
They went on: “But we are going to stay doing this podcast, and stay being us, and we are going to learn from this.
“And we will be better. We understand that we got it wrong and we won’t get it wrong again. Nobody in this world is perfect.”
In the now deleted video clips that appeared on social media, which were snippets of their previous podcast episode, the duo discussed a number of crude references about women on car bumper stickers.
In a segment they called ‘Irish Car Stickers’, the Tipperary natives - real names Johnny McMahon, 30, and Johnny O’Brien, 35, - read out some of the sticker slogans sent in by listeners, such as: “Workin’ the land and droppin’ the hand #Keephercountry”.
Others included: “Tyres are like women, no good unless they are squealing” and “She’s not a princess, she’s a sl*t.”
Reacting to some of the slogans they were sent in, the duo said: "Jesus, I don't know who gets that and thinks it is a good idea. Scandalous."
But the pair have since apologised for how the clips were edited, and said they ‘didn’t go far enough to condemn’ the offensive language.
They said: “Stepping up to bigger stage comes great scrutiny and accountability.
“Regardless of what we are doing outside the podcast, we are accountable to our own standards.
“We talked about the car stickers and that is our way of reporting what is going on. Our job as podcasters is to talk about the sh*t that is not on mainstream media, and we condemn it in our language saying ‘jaysus that’s mad’ or ‘who would be going around with that’ that is our way of condemning it, but we should have been more clear.
“And we have apologised for not being better.”
The clips have since been removed from social media, whilst the podcast is still available to listen to.
“Nobody censored us, we self censored,” they said.
“We took down the video, nobody asked us to take it down.
They added: “Podcast 210 is still up. We didn’t take it down because there has been so much second hand outrage at it so we want people to go and listen back to it themselves and make up their own mind.
“And in addition to it, we put in extra stuff to that podcast to try and explain it. And let people know what it is we are trying to do. And as comedians people should know what we are trying to do.
“And that is the job of the court jester. To point out things that aren’t being pointed out. To see things in a different view, report on things in a funny way.”
It comes after huge outrage broke out last week when a number of TD’s have condemned the clips that were shared on social media, and called for the national broadcaster to address the matter.
