{"id":111673,"date":"2025-11-01T02:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T02:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/111673\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T02:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T02:20:08","slug":"former-all-black-campbell-johnstone-and-husband-ben-celebrate-one-year-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/111673\/","title":{"rendered":"Former All Black Campbell Johnstone and husband Ben celebrate one year of marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben explains, \u201cInitially I went along thinking, \u2018It\u2019ll be good for my training.\u2019 Then my plan was to pull out closer to the time because there was no way I was going to get on stage in front of all those people in a tiny pair of Speedos!\u201d<\/p>\n

However, with the competition looming, Ben realised he couldn\u2019t back out and thanks to Campbell\u2019s encouragement, he decided to give it a real go.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got more comfortable wearing his Speedos,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cWhen he got up on stage, he didn\u2019t look out of place at all! He really fronted up to that fear, which is more than admirable. He was just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben reflects, \u201cThe posing on stage was a lot harder than I expected. I was having lessons three days a week online and one with a guy at my gym. The exhaustion is almost worse than that of a workout<\/a>. You literally have to concentrate on tensing every muscle in your body at the same time, while smiling and making it look easy, then hold that for 10 minutes in all these different poses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell continues, \u201cHe looked like he was really enjoying himself on stage, but that may have just been the training and the posing!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BenBen realised he couldn\u2019t back out of the competition, and thanks to Campbell\u2019s encouragement, he decided to give it a real go. Photo \/ Dallas Olsen<\/p>\n

With Ben\u2019s regime seeing him cut out carbs in the final and most challenging month before the competition, it has meant the devoted newlyweds haven\u2019t had a lot of time to enjoy their original plans of eating and drinking together.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy workouts were about an hour and a half long, six days a week, as well as half an hour on the stepper, plus 10,000 steps daily,\u201d shares Ben. \u201cIt would often be midday by the time I did all my training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell recalls, \u201cEveryone warned me to be prepared for when the carbs cut out<\/a>, with the mood swings and everything that comes with that, but to be honest, he didn\u2019t have any of that. I was quite amazed at his dedication to the entire process and felt proud of him \u2013 especially because I knew it was really tough for him with the lack of socialising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben explains, \u201cI\u2019m really social and love going out with people, so not being able to do that was a big challenge. I\u2019d go out and everyone would say, \u2018One drink won\u2019t hurt,\u2019 but it would. Or sometimes they\u2019d go the other way and be really nice, offering their kitchens for me to cook my own meals in, but I\u2019d just feel like an inconvenience. It was easier to stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, staying in was easy, thanks to the new addition to their family, Bruce the Great Dane.<\/p>\n

\"CampbellCampbell Johnstone and Ben Thomson with Bruce the Great Dane. Photo \/ Eva Bradley<\/p>\n

\u201cBruce is pretty much the biggest thing to have changed in our lives since our wedding,\u201d Campbell reflects, crediting his husband for their pup\u2019s party tricks. \u201cBen\u2019s horse-training days have massively come in handy. He\u2019s been doing a pretty good job keeping Bruce in line and everything in order. If it was left to me, it would be an absolute shambles here!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben \u2013 who can be seen showing off a range of impressive tricks with Bruce<\/a> on the pup\u2019s personal Instagram account, @sirbrucethedane \u2013 confides, \u201cEveryone we talked to who\u2019d ever had anything to do with Great Danes only says what amazing dogs they are.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we knew we wanted one, we had already decided he was going to be called Bruce. We always knew we wanted a boy, so he was Bruce for about six months before we even knew who Bruce was.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say the pooch has slotted into Ben and Campbell\u2019s lives almost perfectly, with the rugby player clearly the softer one of the parenting duo. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe pooch has slotted into Ben and Campbell\u2019s lives almost perfectly. Photo \/ Eva Bradley<\/p>\n

\u201cBruce gets away with everything when he\u2019s with me,\u201d muses Campbell. <\/p>\n

Thankfully, Ben\u2019s strength training has also come in handy because he\u2019s able to carry Bruce, who\u2019s growing at 2kg a week, up and down from their bedroom every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a two-storey house and we sleep upstairs,\u201d explains Campbell. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously Bruce has to sleep with us, but his breed isn\u2019t supposed to go up or down the stairs at a young age \u2013 he\u2019s still not allowed to. He\u2019s getting very heavy very quickly, though, so Ben\u2019s now carrying him up and down the stairs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny because people who\u2019ve owned Great Danes say you can literally see them grow. Before we got him, I sort of thought, \u2018That\u2019s got to be rubbish!\u2019 But they couldn\u2019t be more right!\u201d<\/p>\n

While the love of Bruce has strengthened their tight bond, the pair won\u2019t be able to spend their first anniversary together \u2013 they\u2019re busy juggling weddings at The Flaxmill, a venue Ben manages, with work on the Global Games, a junior rugby festival, and planning an African safari for their honeymoon next year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ben is tossing up whether he\u2019ll compete in bodybuilding once more, with trainer Hadi Khodabandehloo of 3DimensionsFitness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only reason I\u2019d do it again is because I\u2019m so competitive that I want to win,\u201d he confesses. \u201cIn the world championships recently, the competitor who came third behind me placed second, so I\u2019ll give it about a year or so, then see if I have the drive to go through it all again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben explains, \u201cInitially I went along thinking, \u2018It\u2019ll be good for my training.\u2019 Then my plan was to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1443,79913,24752,5263,15408,95,28822,15361,7022,795,3043,15555,8126,177,168,21659,5818,1888,2740,1445,79912,10109,79911,6451,424,2882,636,3234,111,139,69,1118,5270,69162,213,165,8229,1318,64872,20110,1316,102,6730,379],"class_list":["post-111673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-about","tag-adopting","tag-ago","tag-all","tag-almost","tag-and","tag-beautiful","tag-ben","tag-black","tag-bruce","tag-call","tag-campbell","tag-canterbury","tag-celebrate","tag-ceremony","tag-drinking","tag-eating","tag-first","tag-former","tag-friends","tag-hanging","tag-husband","tag-johnstone","tag-knew","tag-life","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-one","tag-plains","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-they","tag-theyd","tag-thomson","tag-thought","tag-when","tag-with","tag-would","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}