Papa John’s Founder Says He’s Tried Scrubbing N-Word From Vocabulary

Ousted Papa John’s founder, John Schnatter, is talking in doublespeak … insisting he’s not racist, but copping to having to purge the n-word from his repertoire to prove it.

The former CEO of the pizza chain — who got the boot a few years back for allegedly uttering the n-word in a conference call — made an appearance on the far-right news channel, OAN … where he was rehashing his experience, which he paints as a de facto coup.

At one point, Schnatter says the Board wrongly portrayed him as a racist — adding he’s been up at night since then, wondering how they got away with it.

Then comes the contradictory line … JS says for the past 20 months, he’s had 3 goals — 1) “to get rid of this n-word in my vocabulary and dictionary and everything else because it’s just not true,” 2) figuring how they did this and 3) to get on with his life.

That first goal is a doozy to unpack. On its face, it sounds like he’s admitting the n-word is a regular thing that shows up in his convos all the time, and that he’s needed 20 months to exorcise himself of it.

Something tells us that’s not what he meant — he might’ve been trying to say “get rid of this n-word scandal” — but that’s certainly not how it came out. BTW, Schnatter keeps putting his foot in his mouth with these TV interviews, intentionally or not.