John Schnatter, the founding father 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 house” in Florida because of this of Hurricane Ian.
Schnatter, whose net value was pegged by Forbes at around $1 billion in 2017, is the owner of an expansive real estate portfolio that features some 20 properties throughout the country, including a $6 million condominium in Naples, Fla., in line with Louisville Business First.
The mogul told OAN on Tuesday that his property in Naples suffered damage from the huge Category 4 storm which left dozens dead after bringing record rainfall, flooding and storm surge to Florida.
John Schnatter, the disgraced former CEO of the Papa John’s Pizza chain, was invited by the OAN cable news channel to discuss Hurricane Ian.OANN
In a viral clip circulating online, the cable network noted that Schnatter, 60, was speaking from certainly one of his other homes in Utah.
“After all, you’re currently in Utah but we’re seeing the photographs of your private home in Naples,” the anchor, Stella Inger Escobedo, said in the course of the interview with Schnatter.
“It appears it is totally under water.”
“Just seeing all those images — it’s heartbreaking,” Escobedo added. “Are you able to tell us the aftermath in your neighborhood?”
Schnatter said the extent of the damage depicted in the photographs “gives you a bit of little bit of perspective…[as to] how devastating this storm is.”
He then added that he wasn’t “anxious about myself because I actually have the resources and the team and institutional knowledge” to get through the crisis.
“You only can’t imagine how bad that is and my heart goes out to the parents in Florida,” Schnatter said.
“Yeah, I lost a house, but they’ve lost every little thing.”
Schnatter shared images of the damage to his home in Naples, Fla., which was attributable to Hurricane Ian.OANN
Schnatter and OAN were ridiculed on social media for the segment.
One Twitter user sarcastically remarked: “I’m not anxious because I actually have 600 million and might afford proper insurance. OAN is ridiculous.”
Others also mocked OAN for misspelling the word “hurricane” within 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 can be higher off than most individuals in Florida who’ve had their properties destroyed and lives upended.
“Idk looks as if u took this gorgeous outta context here,” one Twitter user wrote.
“Isn’t he sorta admitting that because he’s wealthy he’ll be just superb and that people who aren’t Papa John is not going to be?”
Schnatter, whose net value was valued by Forbes at $1 billion back in 2017, is reported to own many properties across the country.OANN
One other Twitter user wrote: “i mean at the very least hes being honest, he could’ve pretended it affects him quite a bit more.”
On the time Schnatter filed for divorce from his wife in 2019, he owned at the very least three properties in Anchorage, Ky., not removed from Louisville. The properties, which totaled greater than 100 acres of land, were managed by a limited liability co-owned by Schnatter.
No less than 70 people have been confirmed dead in Florida because of this of Hurricane Ian.ZUMAPRESS.com
After he was forced out as CEO in 2018, he began selling a big chunk of his 31% ownership stake in Papa John’s. In total, he pocketed greater than $500 million from the sale of his shares in the corporate that he built into the fourth-largest pizza chain within the country.
No less than 71 Floridians have been confirmed dead because of this of the hurricane, in line with authorities.
About 520,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity as of Monday evening, down from a peak of two.6 million. But that continues to be nearly the identical amount of consumers 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, in line with CNBC.
With Post wires
