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Papa John Former CEO John Schnatter

Source: (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images) / (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

Papa John Tries Explaining His “N-Word” Firing Fiasco

Ahhh, where do we even begin?

Papa John’s founder and former CEO John Schnatter stepped down from his Chairman position on July 11th, 2018 after a scandal that he allegedly used the “N-Word” on a conference call. This was only 6 months after he stepped down from being CEO on January 1st of the same year for controversial statements he made in November of 2017, criticizing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for not doing anything about national anthem protests by football players.

To make things worse, the conference call in which he allegedly used the racial slur was a call for “racial sensitivity training.” Schnatter claims he wasn’t being racist, but simply said, “Colonel Sanders called blacks n***ers and Sanders never faced public outcry”. Turns out, the call in which he said the slur was recorded and he claims the media company ‘Laundry Service’ (who was on that call) tried to extort him for $6 million once the company fired them.

To this day audio has never surfaced but the damage was already done since Laundry Service was able to get Forbes to cover the slur without releasing the audio. That led to his ultimate departure from the company and him writing an op-ad about not getting a ‘N-word pass’.

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Fast forward to this week, John stopped by the popular H3 Podcast to try and shed light on the situation, but he arguably just made it worse.

During the podcast, Papa John discussed the situation in further detail claiming he isn’t a racist but says some things that are rather eye-opening. First he states that he hates racial slurs so much, that if he is out to dinner and someone uses the N-word, he will get up and leave. This declaration makes host Ethan Klien stop and ask why people usually use the term when he’s out to dinner, which John tried to downplay and shrug off.

Later, he says that in one of the meetings he walked into before he left, he was given a test where the first question was, “Are you a racist?” The fact this happened is a clear indication that the company was already worried about his behavior and comments towards people of color ruining everyone’s money. The majority of the podcast is him explaining NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, his board of directors, and execs from Laundry Service were all just “out to get him” from the beginning.

You can listen to Papa John’s story about the N-word fiasco above and listen to the entire podcast episode down below.

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