Papa John's Ousted CEO: 'It Just Doesn't Taste as Good'

The ousted founder of Papa John's is feeling angry, disappointed—and possibly bloated. In an interview with WDRB, John Schnatter said he has eaten 40 Papa John's pizzas in the last 30 days, and it's not as good as it was when he was running the company. "It's not the same pizza," Schnatter said. "It's not the same product. It just doesn't taste as good." Schnatter, who resigned as CEO last year after admitting that he used the N-word during a conference call, said ungrateful board members conspired to force him out. "I never dreamed that people that I cared about, that I loved, that I made multimillionaires, would do what they did," he said.

Schnatter said former protégé Steve Ritchie and other board members "all used the black community and race as a way to steal the company." He vowed that board members who forced him out would have a "day of reckoning," NBC reports. He also slammed the company's current CEO, former Arby's president Rob Lynch. "He has never been a CEO," Schnatter said. "He has no pizza experience. He has never been in the pizza category. He doesn't really know quality. Probably most important, he doesn't have a passion for people." Schnatter, who is still a major Papa John's shareholder, said he doesn't want to return to the company, but claimed that if he did, people would be "cheering" and "doing back flips." (More Papa John's stories.)