The passion of Papa John

After stepping down three years ago following the revelation that he’d uttered a racist slur on a corporate call, John Schnatter is wandering the wilderness of TikTok and conservative media, criticizing the company he founded even as he dreams of a return

- Devin Leonard

It was a crucifixion,” says John Schnatter. “It was unethical. It was immoral. It was evil.” The founder of Papa John’s International Inc. is giving an emotional account of his split three years ago with the world’s third-largest pizza chain. Yes, Schnatter uttered a deplorable racial slur. Yes, he did so on a corporate conference call. But he says there’s so much more to the story.

Schnatter is pleading his case in a building he calls the Outhouse, a hangout spot beside the golf course on his estate near Louisville. He’s seated in a leather-bound rocking chair with a decorative animal fleece draped over the back. Sipping from a tall can of Liquid Death Mountain Water, he lists the forces he says played a role in his downfall: duplicitous Papa John’s executives, conniving ad agency reps, public- relations incompetents, the “progressive elite left.” The last one, he says, has long resented him for taking an operation begun in the broom closet of his father’s bar and transforming it into a global chain with more than 5,000 outlets. “The Papa John’s story totally debunks the left’s ideology,” he says. “This is America. You can live the American dream.”

Visible through the French doors behind the 59-year-old Schnatter is a tree-lined path leading to a stone bridge over a flowing brook to his mansion, which rises above a rock encircled pond. Lately he’s been teasing his half-million-plus followers on TikTok with glimpses of its opulent interior. Another clip features him strutting to his helicopter, to the sounds of the Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa. The message: Sorry, haters. Papa John is still large, if not in charge.