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When it comes to delicious pizza, the Papa John’s founder and former CEO says that he can’t be topped.
In fact, John Schnatter — who resigned as the company’s chairman and chief executive last year after he confessed to using the n-word during a company conference call — has accused Papa John’s PZZA, -0.53% current leadership of destroying the company that he started in 1984.
Schnatter torched Steve Ritchie, the CEO who replaced him; board member Mark Shapiro; and the board chairwoman, Olivia Kirtley, in an interview with WDRB News that has gone viral on Twitter TWTR, +0.43% — particularly after he claimed to have eaten an average of 1 ⅓ Papa John’s pizzas per day over the past month:
‘I’ve had over 40 pizzas in the last 30 days. It’s not the same product. It just doesn’t taste as good. The way they’re making the pizza is just not fundamental to what makes a Papa John’s pizza.’
Schnatter accused the new leadership of conspiring to force him out, claiming that they’d “fabricated” the May 2018 conference call that shook the pizza chain. While he told WDRB that he did use the racist term he was accused of having spoken during an internal conference call on diversity training, he said that he was actually quoting another famous company founder. And he accused the new board of conspiring against him to push him out.
“They stole the company, and now they’ve destroyed the company,” he said. “Olivia Kirtley and Mark Shapiro should be in jail. It’s that bad. What they’ve done is just wrong, and they’ve hurt a lot of people.”
Papa John’s could not be immediately reached for comment.
But Schnatter warned that “a day of reckoning will come” and “the record will be straight.”
Much of social media was stuck on the 40 pizzas, however, especially since Schnatter appeared red-faced and sweaty in the video clip (which appears to have been slowed down from the original interview) being passed around.
“Papa John has f—ing HAD IT,” tweeted model and actress Chrissy Teigen. Fellow actress Busy Phillips posted that she was “grossed out” by the interview.
Shares of Papa John’s International Inc. are up more than 54% since the start of the year, double the 2019 gain of the benchmark S&P 500 SPX, +0.23% index.
