Long before she became one of Seven’s most recognisable television personalities, Johanna Griggs had a screen appearance she desperately hoped would never see the light of day again.

In 1991, the former champion swimmer made a brief appearance on Home and Away. But the experience was so embarrassing that Griggs later revealed she made an extraordinary request when negotiating her future with Seven — asking the network to help ensure the footage would never be broadcast again.

For years, the forgotten scenes remained out of public view. Then, in 2014, an unexpected discovery brought the story back into the spotlight.

The Little-Known Role That Started It All

Griggs was just 17 when she was sent to audition for a role on Home and Away through Vivian’s Modelling Agency. At the time, she was taking a break from her professional swimming career and had no ambitions to become an actor.

“I was doing some stuff for Vivian’s Modelling Agency and they used to just send you out for random stuff,” she told news.com.au. “One day it was to go out and do Home and Away.”

Once on set, she discovered she would be playing Inga, a Swedish character attempting to steal Bobby’s husband. Bobby was portrayed by Nicolle Dickson.

But the role quickly became an uncomfortable experience for the teenager.

“I am not an actor and had no desire to be an actor,” Griggs recalled.

She said her Swedish accent seemed to get worse with every take, while she and the others struggled to keep from laughing at the end of each scene.

By the time filming finished, she had made up her mind.

Griggs immediately contacted her manager and declared that her acting career was over.

The Unusual Request During Her Negotiations With Seven

A year or two later, Griggs announced her retirement from swimming and began receiving offers from television networks.

She ultimately decided to pursue sports broadcasting with Seven, but there was one part of her past she worried could undermine her credibility as a serious television presenter.

Her brief Home and Away appearance was still out there somewhere — and she wanted it to stay hidden.

Griggs revealed that keeping the footage out of circulation actually became part of the negotiations with the network.

“It actually became part of our negotiations (to bury the tapes),” she told news.com.au.

According to Griggs, Seven said it could remove all copies of the footage apart from the master tape.

“We were like, ‘cool, that means that no one will ever see it again’,” she recalled.

For a while, the arrangement appeared to have worked. Over the following two decades, several people attempted to track down the footage but failed.

It seemed that the embarrassing chapter of her television past might remain a secret indefinitely.

The Discovery That Brought Her Past Back Into the Spotlight

Then came 2014 — and the moment Griggs had been dreading.

She woke up one morning to find an Instagram post from a viewer who had recognised her in an old episode of Home and Away.

The viewer was astonished to discover that the familiar Seven presenter had once played Inga from Sweden.

The reason the footage had resurfaced was simple: 7mate was broadcasting episodes of Home and Away from the beginning, bringing Griggs’ long-forgotten appearance back before audiences.

The secret was out.

The following day, a newspaper ran a front-page story about the discovery of Johanna’s lost soap opera footage.

Griggs responded with a joke on Twitter, writing that things could have been worse — “it could have been a sex tape!”

Her attempt to laugh off the situation, however, did not go down particularly well with her bosses at Seven.

“I actually got in a lot of trouble for doing that,” she admitted with a laugh.

After years of hoping the footage would remain unseen, the story had become a very public part of her television history.

From Embarrassing Cameo to Three Decades at Seven

The irony is that the appearance Griggs once wanted to erase has become a memorable anecdote from her long broadcasting career.

She has spent more than 30 years at Seven, establishing herself as a familiar face in Australian television and building a reputation far removed from her brief teenage acting experiment.

Her story also highlights just how much can be hidden in a television network’s archives — from forgotten performances to moments that even the stars themselves would rather leave in the past.

And with Seven preparing to celebrate its 70th anniversary, Griggs is set to revisit more of the network’s history.

Johanna Griggs Returns to the Archives for Spotlight

Griggs will feature in a special episode of Spotlight celebrating seven decades of Seven, alongside fellow network personalities Larry Emdur, Sonia Kruger and Bruce McAvaney.

The programme will look back at memorable television moments, rare archival footage and previously unseen bloopers.

For Griggs, revisiting the material proved to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

“Every single tape package that came up was so brilliant,” she said, explaining that the footage revealed countless details she had either forgotten or never known.

“It was amazing.”

After years of trying to keep one particular chapter of her past under wraps, Griggs is now part of a celebration of the very network that helped make her a household name.

Her brief appearance as Inga may not have gone according to plan, but it remains one of the most unexpected stories from the early years of a broadcasting career that has endured for decades.