Johanna Griggs Steps Down After 12 Years — But the Hidden Story Behind Her Emotional Goodbye Is Hard to Ignore
A quiet goodbye after 12 extraordinary years
Johanna Griggs has closed an important chapter in her life away from the television cameras.
The Better Homes and Gardens favourite has announced that she has stepped down from the Beyond Blue board after 12 years, bringing to an end one of the longest-running commitments of her career outside broadcasting.
In a heartfelt message shared on Instagram, Johanna described the experience as an enormous privilege and reflected on everything she had learned through the role.
“What a privilege and honour it has been,” she wrote.
For viewers who know her primarily as the familiar face of Better Homes and Gardens, it revealed another side of Johanna’s life — one that has involved years of advocacy, fundraising and listening to Australians talk openly about their struggles.
A role that took her far beyond the television studio
Johanna joined the Beyond Blue board in June 2014. She also chaired the Be You National Advisory Council from its inception in 2017, helping guide Australia’s national mental-health and wellbeing initiative for early learning services and schools.
Over the years, her role took her around the country.
She said she had spoken at and hosted events, fronted campaigns and webinars and twice walked 30 kilometres to raise money.
But perhaps the part she remembered most was not the public appearances.
It was the people.
Johanna spoke of meeting Australians from “all walks of life” who shared stories about their struggles, fears and loved ones they had lost — as well as stories of how Beyond Blue had helped them find their way towards better mental health.
She saw the human stories behind the mission
That is a very different kind of television experience.
There are no ratings.
No audience applause.
No carefully edited segment.
Instead, there are people telling stories about moments in their lives that can be difficult to put into words.
Johanna said those encounters had been one of the most humbling parts of her time with Beyond Blue.
She credited the organisation’s chairs, chief executive Georgie Harman, board colleagues and wider staff for the lessons she had learned over the 12 years.
And her language was strikingly personal.
She said she would remain a “cheerleader” for the work Beyond Blue does.
Her work with Be You may be the part that leaves the biggest footprint
Alongside her Beyond Blue board role, Johanna chaired the Be You National Advisory Council, a programme designed to help educators support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
Be You is now delivered nationally by Beyond Blue in partnership with Early Childhood Australia and headspace, and provides free, evidence-informed professional learning, tools and support for education settings.
Its reach is substantial.
Be You currently supports more than 14,000 education settings across Australia, with its 2026 research covering the experiences of more than 2,000 educators.
Johanna specifically highlighted the initiative’s work supporting educators and early-learning leaders, as well as its evidence-based mental-health and postvention support.
After years spent in that role, she has now handed the chair to Abbe Anderson.
Abbe Anderson is taking over
Johanna used her farewell message to congratulate Anderson as she begins a more active role with Be You.
Anderson described the transition as following in the “rather large footsteps” of Griggs and highlighted the programme’s nationwide reach.
The change comes as Be You releases its State of Mental Health in Education 2026 report.
The latest research found that educators continue to identify mental-health concerns such as anxiety and depression among the leading health challenges facing children and young people, while educator confidence in recognising and responding to mental-health concerns has increased since earlier surveys.
So although Johanna has stepped away from the council, the work she helped guide is continuing at national scale.
It was not simply a boardroom role
Johanna’s farewell makes clear that her work was often highly visible.
She travelled.
She hosted.
She spoke.
She fundraised.
But the more important work may have happened in the moments between those public duties.
She listened.
She met people who were willing to share deeply personal experiences.
And she became one of the recognisable faces helping bring conversations around mental health into spaces where they might otherwise feel difficult to approach.
That is a very different legacy from a television career.
It is also one that cannot be measured by screen time.
Her television career was already remarkable before Beyond Blue
Johanna’s public life did not begin with Better Homes and Gardens.
She first established herself as a champion swimmer, representing Australia at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games, where she won bronze, and at the 1991 World Championships, where she won silver.
She moved into television after retiring from competitive swimming and built a broad broadcasting career that included sport, current events and major international competitions.
Seven later described her as one of the network’s most established television personalities, with hosting credits spanning tennis, racing, Olympics coverage and House Rules.
Then came Better Homes and Gardens.
For more than 20 years, she has been part of Australian living rooms
Johanna began hosting Better Homes and Gardens in 2005.
Seven has described the programme as Australia’s longest-running lifestyle show, and Johanna has now spent more than two decades at its centre.
In February 2026, she told 7NEWS that the programme still felt like a dream job.
Her husband, she revealed, jokes that she is not really working because she is simply having the time of her life.
Johanna admitted she sometimes felt “guilty” about that.
She spoke about the extraordinary experiences the programme had given her — travelling around Australia and overseas, meeting talented people and seeing homes and gardens viewers would otherwise never experience.
And Better Homes and Gardens remains part of her television life.
Seven’s 2025 media material confirmed that she would continue hosting the programme.
One of her greatest strengths came from making television feel personal
Johanna once shared a piece of advice from one of her mentors that has stayed with her throughout her career.
The idea was simple: even if she was speaking to a room full of people, she should imagine she was talking to one person sitting alone at home.
That person, she explained, might be lonely.
And television might be their connection.
It became part of the way she approached Better Homes and Gardens — not as though she were performing at an audience, but as though she were speaking directly to one person.
That philosophy also makes her years with Beyond Blue feel particularly fitting.
Both roles, in very different ways, have involved connection.
The timing makes her departure from Beyond Blue especially poignant
Johanna’s final day with the Beyond Blue board comes after 12 years — but she is leaving at a time when the organisation’s work remains deeply relevant.
Be You’s latest research shows that mental health and wellbeing continue to be major issues across Australia’s education system, while educators are facing increasing expectations to respond to those concerns.
Johanna’s decision therefore does not represent an organisation stepping away from the issue.
It represents one individual deciding that, after 12 years, it is time for someone else to take the role forward.
That is why her language was so focused on gratitude rather than finality.
“I’ll forever be a cheerleader”
There was no hint in Johanna’s message that she intended to disappear from the cause.
Quite the opposite.
She wrote that she was proud to have served for so long and said she would “forever be a cheerleader” for Beyond Blue.
She described the experience as “remarkable, humbling” and “phenomenal”, and said she was grateful to have been given the opportunity.
That choice of words matters.
She is stepping down from a formal position.
She is not stepping away from caring about the work.
The farewell from her television colleagues was immediate
Johanna’s announcement quickly drew messages from fellow Australian television personalities.
Sunrise presenter Mark Beretta thanked her for her contribution, while journalist Melissa Doyle praised the legacy she had created and the number of people she had helped.
The comments reflected something that can be easy to forget about television personalities.
Viewers see them on screen.
But people working alongside them often see an entirely different side — the charitable commitments, events and causes they support away from television.
For Johanna, that second career has quietly lasted 12 years.
She has already embraced other chapters of her life
Johanna’s career has rarely stood still.
Alongside Better Homes and Gardens, she has hosted House Rules, major sporting broadcasts and charity telethons, while continuing to work on renovation projects with her husband, builder Todd Huggins.
In 2026, she was again part of Seven’s Good Friday Appeal, helping raise money for sick children and Victorian regional health services.
So the Beyond Blue departure is not necessarily the beginning of a quieter professional life.
It is simply the end of one particularly meaningful commitment.
And that may be the part viewers never saw
There is something striking about Johanna Griggs’ 12-year Beyond Blue chapter.
It happened largely outside the programme that made her famous.
While millions of Australians knew her from Better Homes and Gardens, another part of her life was spent travelling around the country, raising funds, hosting conversations and hearing stories that would never appear on a Friday-night lifestyle show.
She became a television household name.
But for 12 years, she was also doing something much less visible.
She was helping an organisation whose work centred on people who needed someone to listen.
A different kind of legacy
Johanna’s departure does not erase those 12 years.
The events she hosted, campaigns she supported and countless conversations she was part of are now part of the organisation’s history.
So too is her work with Be You, which continues to support thousands of schools and early-learning services across the country.
And while Abbe Anderson now takes on a larger role, Johanna has made clear that she leaves with enormous pride in what the team has built.
Perhaps that is why her farewell feels less like an ending than a handover.
After 12 years, Johanna Griggs is turning the page
For a woman who has spent more than two decades appearing in Australian homes every week, Johanna knows something about long chapters.
She has had a sporting career.
A broadcasting career.
A lifestyle television career.
And now, a 12-year chapter of mental-health advocacy comes to a close.
Her message was not about what she was giving up.
It was about what she had been given.
The people she met.
The lessons she learned.
The stories she heard.
The chance to help.
And the knowledge that the work will continue after she leaves.
“What a privilege and honour it has been.”
Those words may have been written as a farewell.
But they also read like a thank-you.
And for Johanna Griggs, that may be the most fitting way to close a chapter that began 12 years ago — not with a goodbye to the cause, but with a promise to keep cheering from the sidelines.