Gianna Henry Interview
PRODUCER: Hello, Gianna. Thanks for joining us.
GH: I’m happy to have been asked to take part, and pleased you managed to find my details, finally.
PRODUCER: Yes, well, it was a little harder to track you down than Zanna’s other friends.
GH: You don’t need to tell me why. Paige wasn’t keen for me to take part.
PRODUCER: And why might that be, do you think? Can you tell us a little more about that? How did that friendship break down?
GH: Well, personal reasons. I was never that keen on Paige. At first I thought she was okay, but later Zanna told me some of the stuff she’d said about me. She said something about me at dinner once. Called me stupid. She always thought she was better, cleverer than other people. Me included, I guess.
PRODUCER: And when did Zanna tell you that?
GH: It was after things between her and Paige got tense, with the blog and everything. But I never warmed to her, even from the start. She was way too obsessed with Zanna. I thought she was in love with her, for God’s sake. That was my concern. This woman who was secretly in love with Zanna had moved in with her and her boyfriend and she might do something to get in the way. I just wanted the best for those two, Zanna and Shane, I thought they were perfect together. That’s what Zanna always said. I guess it’s working out for Paige and Shane now. They’re still together. But I just never saw those two together. I still can’t get my head around it.
PRODUCER: You thought Paige was in love with Zanna?
GH: Yeah, I did. She came out of nowhere and, all of a sudden, she was always there. Always crawling around Zanna, getting dressed up in her clothes, copying Zanna, saying the things she said, adopting her mannerisms. After she turned up, it went from zero to sixty. It was hard to even get alone time with Zanna. Paige was always there. So yeah, I came to the conclusion Paige had other feelings. Well, it was egg on my face because she only went and stole Zanna’s boyfriend, didn’t she.
PRODUCER: You take issue with that?
GH: Yes, I do. It’s a bit . . . wrong, I think. Don’t you? To be so close with someone and after they die start dating their ex? What kind of friend would do that? You wouldn’t steal someone’s boyfriend when they were alive, so why would you after they are dead? That’s what I think anyway, but maybe Paige would have dated Shane when Zanna was alive. Maybe she did.
PRODUCER: They have always denied that.
GH: Well, they would, wouldn’t they?
PRODUCER: What do you think?
GH: Look, I don’t have any concrete proof. I’m just saying, it doesn’t sit right with me. Paige was unhealthily obsessed with Zanna. Now her and Shane are apparently this loved-up couple.
PRODUCER: “Unhealthily obsessed.” That’s quite extreme, isn’t it?
GH: Is it? You tell me. Moving in with your friend, working for them, running their business in their own name for five years after they died and shacking up with their ex? Doesn’t that seem unhealthy to you? Doesn’t it?
[A pause.]
Look. I really don’t have anything against Paige. She’s not my kind of person. That’s fine, not everyone gets on. She said some nasty things about me, but personal things aside, it must have been hard, what she went through, after all of it and everything. It’s just . . . not how the average normal person would act. That’s all. But then, I guess Zanna wasn’t entirely normal either, in a different way. Maybe you just can’t be an influencer and be “normal”, anyway.
My problem is that she carried on running the Instagram account after Zanna died, and that she began dating Shane. I don’t think Zanna would have wanted either of these things to happen.
PRODUCER: And you say things got “tense” between Zanna and Paige. What do you mean by that?
GH: Well, I’m not sure it was that great a friendship. Zanna told me things, about Paige. They were arguing, living together was getting uncomfortable. Even Zanna was finding Paige smothering by that point. Even finding her a bit scary at times.
PRODUCER: Paige says their friendship was fine?
GH: I know things between Paige and Zanna weren’t all rosy, no matter what she says. I can show you texts to prove it. I remember it well: it all started when the blog reached 100,000 followers.
PRODUCER: There has been a lot of speculation about the results of the case. Suggestions that Paige was more involved in Zanna’s death. What do you think of that? Do you share those views?
GH: No, I don’t. I mean, no. Things weren’t always how Paige says they were, between her and Zanna. I know that. But I don’t believe Paige would do that. Like I say, she loved Zanna, from what I could see, a lot. The police are the experts. If there were something, they would have found it, wouldn’t they?