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Can sandwich maker Jimmy John Liautaud shake off his big game past?

 
You probably know the backstory: Sandwich maker Jimmy John Liautaud, proprietor of the Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches chain, got a ton of heat when some photos from a 2010 African safari turned up online, showing the Chicago businessman celebrating over the carcasses of a couple of elephants, a rhino, and a leopard.

In 2015, he gave a rare interview and teared up as he talked about how much the backlash had hurt him and his business.

“I choose to hunt and I choose to fish,” he said. “Everything I’ve done has been totally legal. And the meat has been eaten, if not by me then by someone I’m with.”

We’re sure that rhino was delicious.

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Liautaud said that he was still an avid hunter, but after his infamy he said that he no longer hunted African big game.

It’s been nine years since Jimmy John’s African safari. Has enough time passed for him to be forgiven?

Well, we took a look at the official Jimmy John’s Twitter feed, and wow, people have not forgotten. Virtually every tweet put out by the company’s official feed is tagged by angry people posting photos of Jimmy John and his kills, day in and day out.

His company must be suffering greatly, right?

Oh wait, it’s still expanding like crazy.

Sure, that makes sense. People who buy sandwiches don’t give a shit about wildlife, what were we thinking.

 
Bonus item: Anticipating that this will come up in the comments, we understand that the evidence is pretty strong now that the infamous chunky dude humping a dead shark is not, in fact, Jimmy John but a retired upstate New York cop named Shawn. So please keep that in mind.

 

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 4, 2019 at 20:00

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Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He’s written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology’s harassment of Paulette Cooper titled ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely,’ and more recently a compilation of his stories, ‘Battlefield Scientology.’ He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world, as well as other subjects at The Underground Bunker. You can reach him by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you’d like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.)

 

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