No One Is Safe From a Dakota Johnson Press Tour

“Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.”

These words are my Roman Empire. Somehow, some way, each new day brings an opportunity for me to ponder them. That’s not the truth, Ellen—words spoken by the baroness of bangs, the temptress of truth, the queen of calmly delivered chaos, Dakota Johnson, on the (now defunct—more on that later) Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Johnson is the daughter of famous parents Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson.

And though real Dakotaheads will recognize the 2012 Fox sitcom Ben and Kate as the first signal that Johnson was capable of one day ascending to a stunning and consistent level of incidental comedic genius, it wasn’t until the release of Fifty Shades of Grey in 2015 that she began wreaking havoc on press junkets, late night shows, and generally any unsuspecting party who asked her a question expecting a normal, non-lime-related answer. Opinions on Johnson’s performance in the bizarre Fifty Shades franchise vary, but since then, she’s become one of our nation’s most cherished nepo babies (“platinum grade,” as deemed by New York magazine’s December 2022 cover story) with performances in Suspiria, The Lost Daughter, and The Peanut Butter Falcon, but more importantly in literally every press tour she’s ever done. Because—for the most part—Johnson seems to use her Hollywood privilege for chaotic good by having no awareness, or at least none of the concern that other public figures seem to carry, about telling the exact truth about what she thinks and feels in the exact moment, exactly all of the time.

Johnson’s new movie Madame Web premieres today, and while Cassandra Webb’s (yes, the character’s name is “Webb,” but her superhero name is “Web’’—just one of life’s many delights!) superpower may be clairvoyance, Dakota Johnson’s superpower is a gorgeous and rare case of radioactive obstinacy about Hollywood media training. Dakota has a lot to say! Or as she’d likely put it: She gets asked a lot of questions, so she gives a lot of answers, and journalists write those answers down. And then those answers just so happen to spin out into memes and iconic moments because she shouldn’t be saying them, should be saying them in a different way, or will be asked to explain them almost immediately afterward.

When I Googled Dakota Johnson a few days ago, the first video that came up showed her saying that filming a minor role in the series finale of The Office was “the worst time of [her] life.” The second video that appeared was of her clarifying why on earth she said that (it’s because filming The Office “was, like, the worst time of [her] life”). Which can mean only one thing: Dakota Johnson has been on one during the Madame Web press tour.

Anyone who’s new to the Johnson oeuvre—and who’s only just now bugging their eyes out at her press appearances while attempting to give themselves at-home bangs—might think this woman doesn’t like her own movies that much. And honestly, they might be right. It’s kind of hard to tell! But mostly, these unhinged appearances are just part of the historic interplay between casting Johnson in your movie … and then waiting with bated breath to see what she says about it. The woman simply is not afraid of an awkward moment. She thrives in them; she actually … doesn’t seem to know she’s creating them at all!

It’s why I love her wholeheartedly and fearfully—like how you love a god. And I’m not the only one. Johnson’s Madame Web press run is proving once and for all that no one is safe from her banter. Here’s a comprehensive list of everyone who should fear the Calm Queen of Chaos …

Her Movies’ PR Teams

This is why we’re gathered here today. In January, while promoting Madame Web, Johnson told EW that acting against a blue screen for the movie felt “absolutely psychotic” and that she had no idea whether her performance would “be good at all.” Earlier this month, while also promoting Madame Web, she told The Huffington Post that Hollywood is “fucking bleak right now.” And in perhaps my favorite moment from the Madame Web promotional tour, Seth Meyers asked her about whether the movie exists outside the Spiderverse and she responded—while absolutely resplendent in black, and having a wonderful time—“You don’t have to know anything about anything at all to watch this movie.”

Which honestly … is exactly what I want to hear about a superhero movie! Just let me jump in and learn about the illustrious world of clairvoyant EMTs, please.

Clearly, publicists should fear anything and everything that may come out of Johnson’s mouth anytime she’s anywhere near a microphone. But on the other hand, my question for them is this: Do you want press? Do you want the public to relate? Then hire Johnson. She’s gonna get out there and say some shit, and it’ll probably all turn out fine.

Ellen DeGeneres

Things did not turn out fine for Ellen, however.

Did Johnson’s dry humor and inability to lie for laughs take down a daytime talk show empire? Depends on whom you ask. Johnson would probably say no. She probably doesn’t even remember that she went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in November 2019 while promoting The Peanut Butter Falcon. She may not remember being responsible for an exchange that has become core to a generation of celebrity enthusiasts: refuting Ellen when she jokingly confronted Johnson about not inviting her to her recent birthday party.

“Actually, no, that’s not the truth Ellen.” How cutting! Ellen seems truly thrown that someone is responding to her typical teasing with legitimate truth. (And to make matters worse, it was later revealed that Ellen missed the party because she was at a football game with George W. Bush instead.)

A few years later, The Ellen DeGeneres Show was canceled in the wake of accusations that it was a toxic workplace. So while Johnson wasn’t directly responsible for terminating a talk show that ran for 19 seasons … she did sort of expose that Ellen’s sunny way of teasing people was often at the expense of those people—sometimes in the form of lying!

Architectural Digest

Johnson isn’t a beacon of steadfast honesty, however. She will lie—but only at the most unexpected times.

Several amazing things were revealed in this Architectural Digest Open Door home tour: her giant crystals, her tiny green kitchen, a table “made out of wood from Winston Churchill’s yacht—I’m not lying!” But Johnson was lying about something: In that tiny green kitchen, she went on and on about how much she loves limes. “I love limes,” she said, for some reason. “I love them, they’re great, I love them so much, and I like to present them like this in my house.” But as it turns out …

She was lying! Or rather joking around—as she revealed soon after on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, those limes were placed there by the set dresser. In fact, Johnson is allergic to limes. I love Dakota Johnson, she’s great, I love her so much. (I am also allergic to Dakota Johnson.)

All Talk Show Hosts, Actually

Speaking of Jimmy Fallon … he’d better look alive, too. Johnson continues to go on his show regularly, so there must not be any real ill will, but in 2018, while she was promoting Suspiria, Fallon could not stop cutting her off while she was trying to tell a story about her dog being sprayed by a skunk. She finally pondered aloud, “Aren’t you supposed to let people talk on this show?”

In reality, this wasn’t nearly as biting as it reads on paper, but it did deliver a sort of harsh honesty that most celebrity-to-host exchanges don’t. Sometimes Jimmy Fallon won’t let guests get a word in on his show! It’s a problem we should have a dialogue about! As for Johnson, she was going to tell a weird little story about putting tomatoes on her dog one way or another. (Later in this interview, Fallon asked her to clarify why she was death staring at Angelina Jolie while Jennifer Aniston was onstage at the Golden Globes, just in case you thought Johnson was a liability only during press runs).

However, my personal favorite Dakota Johnson chaotic talk show moment is when she went on The Late Show With David Letterman. When he pointed out that he always really loved when her mom, Melanie Griffith, came on his show, she simply asked: “So … are you my dad?”

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Her Parents

And speaking of … anyone related to Dakota Johnson should also beware while she’s out there promoting movies. She’s going to expose her mom for being the “If you’re going to drink, just do it in the house” mom. She’s going to expose her dad for having “like, 900” kids. And she’s going to sneak her mom’s iconic monologue from Working Girl into her sexy Twilight fanfic movie franchise. (She is, for the record, unerringly sweet about her former stepdad, Antonio Banderas.)

Her Costars

Likewise, she’s going to call out Leslie Mann for breaking her dress onstage at the People’s Choice Awards (“It’s not like nobody here hasn’t already seen my boobs”). She’s going to be so weird to Jamie Dornan for three consecutive press tours that they had to regularly dispel rumors that there was tension between them. And, as she did last week, she’s going to talk about how much she loved her Gen Z costars in Madame Web by calling them annoying (“I love them, and they annoy me, and I love them.”)

Her Neighbors

Probably my favorite chaotic Dakota Johnson motif, though, is how many hits her neighbors—as in her literal next-door neighbors—take when she’s on a press tour. In her Architectural Digest tour, she talks about how she’s in a war with her neighbors over the height of the bamboo in her driveway, which she seems flummoxed by. And during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live (Kimmel’s also her neighbor!), he tells a story about how when they were at a charity event and Johnson’s neighbors (unclear whether these were the bamboo neighbors) came over to say hello, she immediately confronted them with “Did you guys tow my grandfather’s truck?”

“I don’t know what happened. I turned into Medusa!” she tells Jimmy. Which she seems to find … surprising. Because she says she’s … not … a confrontational … person …

Dakota Johnson thinks she’s not confrontational.

Judging from her multitude of public confrontations—I would have to disagree!

People in That Blue Bottle

I honestly have no idea what happened here, but at the very least, there seems to be photographic evidence that Johnson once locked a bunch of people in a coffee shop. And the wildest thing about this is—given everything we know about Dakota, and her neighbors, and her limes, and her talk show takedowns—it very well could be real …

Or not! I guess we’ll have to wait until the next press tour to find out whether this is actually the truth, Ellen.

Journalists

And that is why I’m terrified to write this article collecting all of Johnson’s most iconic, hilarious, and yes, terrifying moments in the press. What if Johnson thinks this is as “incredibly annoying and boring” as she thinks calling people “nepo babies” is? What if she doesn’t get it, like how she super didn’t get the guy who asked her what she thought when her expository line from the Madame Web trailer went viral?

What if—and stay with me here—we eventually meet at a high-end resort, I excitedly tell her that I once wrote a profile about her, her normally bright eyes go black, she tells me it was awful, and it destroys my will to ever blog again?! Isn’t every sentence out of context … out of context?

But it’s OK. I rest assured that Dakota Johnson will never, ever read this. I rest assured that she does not know who I am and will never know who I am. Because I am rather confident that she herself doesn’t know how to use the internet.

Herself

Because while Johnson stays off social media and is therefore absolutely shocked every time she finds out some random response to what she thought was an innocuous question has gone viral, she does seem self-aware enough to at least know that she’s out there saying bizarre and hilarious shit. The very Today show interview in which she says that journalists should find something other than nepo babies to write about starts with a clip from her SNL monologue in which she jokes, “I think the big problem is that I say stuff, and then [journalists] write it down—and it’s really unfair!” When the clip ends, Hoda Kotb assures her this is a safe space … and two minutes later Johnson is bashing the nepo baby discourse, kicking off yet another cycle of her saying stuff and journalists (Including me! Right now!) writing it down. It’s perhaps the best evidence yet that no one is safe on a Dakota Johnson press tour—including, and perhaps especially, Dakota Johnson.