From Subway Spokesperson To Pop-Culture Pariah: Inside The Fall Of Jared Fogle

Jared Fogle was once a likeable Subway pitchman who became a household name after he lost hundreds of pounds by eating the restaurant chain’s submarine sandwiches. His precipitous rise to fame was followed by a breathtakingly fast fall after he pleaded guilty to multiple child pornography charges.

2000

Subway hires then-22-year-old Fogle to be their spokesperson after he loses nearly 250 pounds — he once weighed around 425 pounds — with a diet he says mainly consisted of the fast-food chain’s sandwiches. According to Business Insider, Fogle helps Subway nearly triple sales over the following 15 years. His own fortunes rise during the same time period, and his reported personal worth grows to around $15 million. “I never expected any of this,” Fogle tells the New York Daily News in 2013. “I was a business major in college. I thought maybe I'd work for an ad agency or a PR firm.”

October 2014

The Indiana State Police receive a tip from a woman that Russell Taylor, the executive director of the Jared Foundation — the spokesperson’s organization dedicated to ending childhood obesity — sent her texts concerning graphic material involving minors.

April 29, 2015

Police arrest Taylor, then 43, on preliminary charges of child exploitation, possession of child pornography, and voyeurism. Investigators scouring his home in Indiana find hundreds of videos containing child pornography, WXIN reports. After news of the arrest breaks, Fogle notes in a statement that his foundation was cutting ties with Taylor and he claims to be “shocked” about the allegations he calls “disturbing.”

According to The Indianapolis Star, Taylor eventually pleads guilty in 2021 to a total of 30 child pornography and sexual exploitation crimes, and he’s sentenced to 27 years behind bars.

May 4, 2015

Federal authorities charge Fogle with seven counts of production of child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography.

July 7, 2015

FBI agents serving warrants raid Fogle’s residence in Zionsville, Indiana. During an 11-hour search, they reportedly remove potential evidence against the disgraced Subway spokesperson, including electronic devices and DVDs, according to WXIN.

August 19, 2015

Fogle pleads guilty to one count of distribution and receipt of child pornography, and one count of traveling to engage in unlawful sex acts with minors. “His child pornography crime began when [Fogle] learned that alleged co-conspirator Russell Taylor was sexually exploiting a 14-year-old girl in March 2011,” federal prosecutors in Indiana say. “At that time, Mr. Fogle did nothing to stop the abuse or report it to authorities, but chose instead to receive and repeatedly view the child pornography involving the girl and those other minors produced by his alleged co-conspirator in the years that followed.”

The same day Fogle enters his plea, Subway officially cut ties with the spokesperson for what they explained were his “inexcusable” actions, and Katie McLaughlin, Fogle’s wife and the mother of their two children, files for divorce.

November 19, 2015

A federal judge orders Fogle to serve over 15 years behind bars in a correctional facility in Colorado and requires he register as a sex offender upon his release, which is projected to be in March 2029 when he is 51.

For more on this case, tune into Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster premiering on ID on March 6 at 9/8c.