Newsday on “The Good, The Bad, The Hungry”

Newsday has an article about the upcoming ESPN competitive eating documentary The Good, The Bad, The Hungry directed by Nicole Lucas Haimes which includes the following quotes from Joey Chestnut about the MLE contract.

“She opened my eyes,” Chestnut, who has won 11 of the past 12 contests, said of Haimes. “Honestly, I’m so competitive that sometimes I don’t understand what other people are going through . . . I realized doing interviews that, ‘Oh my God, I was pretty insensitive to [Kobayashi’s] problems.’

“I had the same problems when I got older. I wanted more freedom, and eventually they gave me the same things he was asking for. So it’s sad that we had to lose years of competing against each other . . . . When he decided to protest his contract, I saw that as a way of not competing, a reason not to compete.

“But later I thought it took some serious guts to step away from the biggest contest of the year, and something you love. He loves it. He loves it as much as I do . . . If we had communicated more we could have helped him to solve his contract issue and continued competing against each other.”

Fink Beats the Stomach’s latest podcast includes a review of the documentary.

Comments (19)

19 Comments »

  1. Anonymous said

    May 8, 2019 @ 11:07 pm

    Joey playing the victim. Nobody believes this.

  2. anonymous said

    May 8, 2019 @ 11:10 pm

    Maybe now that he is gotten older he should have tried to be more sympathetic towards Seiken who tried to be friendly towards him and gave him a few pointers when he first came upon the scene but no Seiken asked him for a 2 minute interview at Carmines meatball contest in 2004 and said not right now. Nobody ever turned down Seiken for an interview Nobody except for Joey Chestnut

  3. Anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 6:31 am

    Seiken 2004? Really? You absolutely need to make some new friends and get over your hurts. Step away, get another hobby, do anything else but worry over the past.

  4. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 8:30 am

    Chestnut wouldnt be so compassionate if he was losing . Don’t fall for the fake crap He’s happy he’s winning that is why he talking all this sympathy shit

  5. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 9:11 am

    Whip out the violins LOL. BTW has Chestnut ever been a guest on FBTS? If not and they got him as a guest he they would probably cum in their pants

  6. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 9:25 am

    Since they both made up and hugged each other i could just imagine a scenario where Chestnut says fuck the contract and Kobe gets in touch with his promoters to set up a contest between the both of them on July 4th. George Shea would go into a rage his face turning three different colors. Hell he might transform into the hulk. “what is he doing? What is he doing? Scene out of Rocky 4 with Ivan Drago manager where Chestnut picks up the evil Shea by the neck and throws him into the crowd at Coney Island Talk about media attention

  7. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 9:29 am

    631am you need to show some respect for pioneers of the sport and Seiken was one of them. Booker came on the scene the same time as Seiken which means Seiken should get the same respect they give to Booker. Its not just about eating ability Ask the real people and not the haters about what Seiken did for the sport . Plenty plenty.

  8. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 9:38 am

    All i know is that when George Shea gets up on stage attempting to rap with Booker, he is so fuckin awful and does a hell of a job not only embarrasing himself but making a total ass of himself

  9. L.A. Beast said

    May 9, 2019 @ 12:57 pm

    I deserve more credit than other people in the post

  10. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 3:08 pm

    Some people need to do what they were hired to do and that is announce the contest. Not tell corny jokes not play same who and led zepplin songs which are surely outdated just to kill time until sponsor sets up. Crap is deafening to the eardrums

  11. Anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 3:39 pm

    Kid Cary meant more to competitive eating than Seiken ever did.

  12. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 5:52 pm

    i agree hes not funny not entertaining and two faced. Unfortunate the crowd has no choice to listen to him because he throws himself on stage while they wait for the real reason they showed up which is just to watch the Nathans contest

  13. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 5:56 pm

    LA Beast was thrown out of the IFOCE simply because he was having fun with another fellow eater mocking that stupid butter record when they recorded it for YT. They thought it was a joke but others did not see it that way and someone flew into a rage and said Throw him out now and i mean NOW”

  14. anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 6:10 pm

    I cant listen to FBTS anymore All they do is talk about kissing badlands booker ass and how great his rap is blah blah Who the fuck cares Its an old scenario . Even Hungry Charles Hardy who was smart enough to get out at the right time mentioned a few yrs ago in Citifield ” Why is he still doing this”? If its not Booker its kissing another old ass Crazy Legs Conti who could never eat for shit to begin with. And if its not Conti it’s Juan more bite who is practically on every other episode Get some new blood like Wild Bill Myers.

  15. Anonymous said

    May 9, 2019 @ 11:05 pm

    MLE gave Chestnut everything they refused to give Kobayashi. What reason did they give for why? Most obvious answer would seem to be racism

  16. anonymous said

    May 10, 2019 @ 8:12 am

    I have an idea everytime Chestnut is announced on stage they should play Mick Jagger song God give me everything i want but allow a band to cover the song with a slight change of lyrics
    Sheas gimme every thing i want
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwdGCuHhiR8

  17. Anonymous said

    May 10, 2019 @ 8:15 am

    Do not be ridiculous. There is no racism involved with Kobayashi. This isn’t WW2. And absolutely they did not give Joey everything they refused Kobayashi. Koby wanted to eat wherever he wished, do any contests or challenges or camp appearances, anything. He did not care much about the money. Joey only wants money, he never wanted to eat wherever he wished.

  18. anonymous said

    May 10, 2019 @ 9:35 am

    I never saw the Sheas as being racist towards anyone contrary to what several eaters have claimed as such. One even went as far as calling them anti semetic which is not true at all . What i saw is favortism playing one eater against another by showering certain favorites with media attention while others get left out in the cold. They never played fair in that regard . With Chestnut i distinctly remember him going on record as saying ” My goal is to extract every cent i can get from the Sheas” I believe he made this remark after they wouldnt pay airfare to fly his folks out to Coney and he threatened to sit it out if they didn’t Next day airfare for two

  19. anonymous said

    May 10, 2019 @ 9:37 am

    Kobe wasnt a greedy pig. He never bothered with the circuit except for Nathans and Krystals. The circuit was beneath him he was looking for big bucks not peanuts

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