Disgraced Papa John’s founder brags about testing 800 pizzas in 18 months
In a recent profile, Papa John Schnatter rails against the “progressive elite left” and the ad agency that supposedly tricked him into using racist slurs
Like a day-old Papa John’s “Triple Bacon Pizza” that’s become a congealed, room temperature slab of cardboard, time hasn’t been kind to Papa John Schnatter. However, unlike the pizza, the disgraced founder and former CEO of the world’s third-largest pizza chain only has himself to blame.
Three years after saying the N-word on a conference call that led to his dismissal from the company, Schnatter still believes he was the victim of a conspiracy by the “progressive elite left,” according to a new profile in Business Insider.
And despite the TikTok rebrand, which paints him as a tacky multi-millionaire who proudly flaunts his grotesque wealth as if his financial status is reflective of his moral superiority, he’s still nostalgic for the halcyon days of Papa John’s. When he was in charge, he could complain that the Affordable Care Act would force him to raise pizza prices by 14 cents. Now, Papa John’s just sells pizza.
Schnatter’s ousting was a long time coming. Even after he threatened to raise pizza prices by a reasonable amount, Schnatter’s behavior, which includes a 2014 sexual harassment suit, would continue to create PR headaches for the pizza chain best known for complimentary peperoncini and a tub of garlic sauce with every pie. If you can believe it, the rest of the company would’ve preferred the infamous pizza maker not to make comments on NFL players protesting police violence against Black Americans.
All of it came to a head during that fateful conference call when the company’s ad agency attempted to drill some example press questions that might come up following his comments on the NFL. It didn’t go well. In fact, it was probably much, much worse and more disturbing than most remember. Business Insider writes:
Toward the end of the month, Schnatter joined a conference call he says he thought was going to be a routine discussion about the ads he’d appear in next. He remembers being surprised when Stein instead presented him with a series of racially themed questions he might encounter in the chats. “One question you’ll get in some form is ‘John, are you racist?’” Stein told him, according to a transcript of the conversation that later became public.
Stein told Schnatter they needed to craft some “very tight talking points” in preparation for such queries. “Right now their imaginations are running wild,” Stein said. They “think that you’re this right wing, extremist, neo-Nazi racist.”
Schnatter says he feels as if Stein was trying to bait him into saying something that might subsequently embarrass him. Running through Stein’s questions, he expressed disbelief that anyone could accuse him of being a racist. Schnatter said he’d grown up at a time when “they used to drag Black people around behind a pickup truck until they were dead.” He called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a “coward” and accused him of destroying players’ bodies and minds. “They’re all beating their wives up,” Schnatter said. “They’re all on steroids or pot, and now he’s going to let them protest.”