John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s Pizza who was forced to step down as CEO after uttering a racial slur during a conference call, was slammed on Tuesday for telling a cable news channel that he had “lost a home” in Florida as a result of Hurricane Ian.
Schnatter, whose net worth was pegged by Forbes at around $1 billion in 2017, is the owner of an expansive real estate portfolio that includes some 20 properties throughout the country, including a $6 million condominium in Naples, Fla., according to Louisville Business First.
The mogul told OAN on Tuesday that his property in Naples suffered damage from the massive Category 4 storm which left dozens dead after bringing record rainfall, flooding and storm surge to Florida.
In a viral clip circulating online, the cable network noted that Schnatter, 60, was speaking from one of his other homes in Utah.
“Of course, you’re currently in Utah but we’re seeing the images of your home in Naples,” the anchor, Stella Inger Escobedo, said during the interview with Schnatter.
“It appears it is completely under water.”
“Just seeing all those images — it’s heartbreaking,” Escobedo added. “Can you tell us the aftermath in your neighborhood?”
Schnatter said the extent of the damage depicted in the images “gives you a little bit of perspective…[as to] how devastating this storm is.”
He then added that he wasn’t “worried about myself because I have the resources and the team and institutional knowledge” to get through the crisis.
“You just can’t imagine how bad this is and my heart goes out to the folks in Florida,” Schnatter said.
“Yeah, I lost a home, but they’ve lost everything.”
Schnatter and OAN were ridiculed on social media for the segment.
One Twitter user sarcastically remarked: “I’m not worried because I have 600 million and can afford proper insurance. OAN is ridiculous.”
Others also mocked OAN for misspelling the word “hurricane” in the chyron before quickly fixing the typo.
“Well it’s a hurrican, not a hurrican’t,” tweeted one Twitter user.
But others defended Schnatter. They noted that he acknowledged he would be better off than most people in Florida who have had their properties destroyed and lives upended.
“Idk seems like u took this pretty outta context here,” one Twitter user wrote.
“Isn’t he sorta admitting that because he’s rich he’ll be just fine and that people that aren’t Papa John will not be?”
Another Twitter user wrote: “i mean at least hes being honest, he could’ve pretended it affects him a lot more.”
At the time Schnatter filed for divorce from his wife in 2019, he owned at least three properties in Anchorage, Ky., not far from Louisville. The properties, which totaled more than 100 acres of land, were managed by a limited liability co-owned by Schnatter.
After he was forced out as CEO in 2018, he started selling a large chunk of his 31% ownership stake in Papa John’s. In total, he pocketed more than $500 million from the sale of his shares in the company that he built into the fourth-largest pizza chain in the country.
At least 71 Floridians have been confirmed dead as a result of the hurricane, according to authorities.
About 520,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity as of Monday evening, down from a peak of 2.6 million. But that is still nearly the same amount of customers in all of Rhode Island.
A Sept. 29 estimate from CoreLogic found that wind and storm surge damages from Ian could total between $28 billion and $47 billion, according to CNBC.
With Post wires
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
