The Violent Secret of the Couple Behind ‘the Dress That Broke the Internet’

Almost a decade after Keir Johnston found viral fame with “The Dress,” he’s back in the headlines once again. This time, however, it’s for truly disturbing reasons.

Last week, the 38-year-old pleaded guilty to endangering the life of his wife, Grace Johnston, during a violent assault at their home on a small island off the coast of Scotland. The court in Glasgow heard how Keir Johnston choked his wife and brandished a knife during the attack, which led to her telling an emergency services dispatcher: “My husband is trying to kill me.”

The Johnstons came to international attention in 2015 after Grace’s mother bought a dress for their wedding that sparked a giant online debate. When wedding guest Caitlin McNeill posted a photo of the dress on Tumblr, millions of people around the world—including the likes of Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift—became embroiled in a heated row about whether the garment was blue and black or white and gold.

The couple soon found themselves cutting short their honeymoon to make an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show.

“I’m a founding member of team blue and black, I’m afraid,” Keir Johnston told DeGeneres apologetically.

It was Grace who looked most comfortable on camera laughing and joking with the host about the extraordinary global focus on a dress bought for their wedding day.

When her mother, Cecilia Bleasdale, came in wearing the dress—which is clearly blue and black in real life—she sat with her arm around her daughter and explained: “It was Grace’s wedding and I wanted to do her proud, and I’m quite busty and I thought this would pinch me in at the waist, it would give me a figure and I just wanted to get it right.”

Consulted on a picture of the dress, Grace had told her mom at the time that it was white and gold. “I was worried that there was something wrong with my brain,” Bleasdale said.

“It’s quite possible,” Grace added, as the audience laughed.

The segment ended with the apparently happy couple overjoyed when they were rewarded with an additional honeymoon in Grenada and a check for $10,000 to help start their married lives together.

The Devil With a Blue (Or White) Dress

But away from the spotlight, their relationship was marked by “domestic abuse,” the court was told last week.

Seven years after The Dress went viral, on March 6, 2022, Keir Johnston launched into a violent attack at their home on the remote Isle of Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides.

Prosecutor Chris Macintosh told the court that Johnston had been drinking at a pub quiz on the day of the attack. Days earlier, Grace Johnston had attended a job interview on the Scottish mainland in defiance of her husband’s demands. “You should support me but you do not,” he wrote in one message to her on the day of the assault, according to The Guardian.

Macintosh also told the judge, Lady Drummond, how Grace Johnston was afraid of her abusive husband, adding that there is “no permanent police presence on the island, and she was in a situation where she felt trapped.” At one stage, Keir Johnston threatened: “Someone is going to die.”

The husband alluded to the remoteness of their existence on the island while appearing on U.S. TV. “Being such a small island, my mum and dad live next door, we have an adjoining door,” he had explained to DeGeneres.

When Grace Johnston came home on the day of the attack, he awoke at their cottage and said he was going to leave her. As he walked outside, she followed, Macintosh said, at which point Johnston threw her to the ground.

“He placed both knees on her arms, so she was unable to move,” Macintosh said. “He then began strangling her with both his hands. She was initially able to scream and feared for her life and believed Johnston intended to kill her as he was very forceful.”

A witness who heard the screams ran to help and tried to pull Johnston away. He then initially stopped the assault and went back into the cottage, returning with a knife and allegedly threatening to “finish” his wife “off,” according to Scotland’s STV. He then started choking her again.

Grace Johnston contacted friends for help and called authorities, telling the dispatcher that her husband was trying to kill her.

Keir Johnston was later found hiding under a desk in the cottage, still holding a knife, according to STV. He also reportedly held the blade to his own throat at one point before it was grabbed from him.

Grace Johnston was left with severe bruising to her neck but did not need medical treatment after the attack. Her husband reportedly later “alluded to previous episodes of marital violence” while talking to a doctor and described having episodes of “emotional distress” since childhood.

Marco Guarino, Keir Johnston’s lawyer, said his client had always accepted responsibility for the assault. Johnston, a gas station attendant now living on the Scottish mainland, had been due to stand trial but instead pleaded guilty in the case.

Judge Lady Drummond put Johnston in custody until a sentencing hearing next month.

“I have no need to tell you that this is a serious and violent offense,” she told Johnston. “You repeatedly strangled her, injured her and put her life in danger in what must have been absolutely terrifying circumstances for her.”

“I am afraid, Mr. Johnston, that your status has now changed,” Drummond added. “You have been convicted of a very serious crime and you will be remanded meantime.”

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