{"id":48774,"date":"2026-04-07T06:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/mcdonalds-ceo-said-he-blames-his-mother-for-his-infamous-big-arch-taste-test\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:21:17","slug":"mcdonalds-ceo-said-he-blames-his-mother-for-his-infamous-big-arch-taste-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/mcdonalds-ceo-said-he-blames-his-mother-for-his-infamous-big-arch-taste-test\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald&#8217;s CEO said he blames his mother for his infamous Big Arch taste test"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69ab37fed3e2f1aef36a2963?format=jpeg\" alt=\"McDonald&#039;s CEO Chris Kempczinski at a podium\"\/><figcaption>CEO Chris Kempczinski said he blamed his mother for his infamous Big Arch taste test.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Drew\/AP<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>McDonald&#039;s CEO said he blames his mother for the viral Big Arch backlash.<\/li>\n<li>Chris Kempczinski went viral for taking a tiny bite out of his burger, which he kept calling a &quot;product.&quot;<\/li>\n<li>He said his mother taught him not to talk with his mouth full.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>McDonald&#039;s CEO Chris Kempczinskinamed the villain behind his infamous viral February video testing out a new burger.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I blame it all on my mom, because she told me, &#039;Don&#039;t talk with your mouth full,&#039;&quot; he said in an interviewabout the Instagram reel with The Wall Street Journal, released on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;And I think probably in that case I should have just said, &#039;You know what? To hell with it. I&#039;m gonna talk with my mouth full,&#039;&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>In the reel he posted on February 4, Kempczinski taste-tested McDonald&#039;s new Big Arch burger, to the internet&#039;s dismay.<\/p>\n<p>Social media users zeroed in on his robotic body language, notinghow small a bite he took, how he repeatedly called the burger a &quot;product,&quot; and how he didn&#039;t seem to chew the bite and didn&#039;t look like he was enjoying it. The post has been viewed over 16 million times.<\/p>\n<p>In his interview with the Journal, Kempczinski also cleared up rumors that he was a secret vegetarian.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>        View this post on Instagram            <\/p>\n<p>A post shared by Chris Kempczinski (@chrisk_mcd)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He said he first learned that his reel had gotten backlash from one of his children, who called him to say, &quot;Dad, you&#039;ve gone viral, and not in a good way.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>But Kempczinski took the criticism in stride, saying the video&#039;s virality drew more eyeballs to the Big Arch. He added that in the creator economy, consumers are engaging with brands more dynamically and play an equal role in shaping a brand&#039;s image, alongside the brand itself.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This notion of you can control everything \u2014 that&#039;s not the world that we&#039;re in,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Kempczinski often posts videos related to McDonald&#039;s. In January, he posted a reel about the top three food trends he predicted would define 2026: fiber, sweet and spicy flavors, and fun drinks.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald&#039;s stock is up about 3% in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CEO Chris Kempczinski said he blamed his mother for his infamous Big Arch taste test. Richard Drew\/AP McDonald&#039;s CEO said he blames his mother for the viral Big Arch backlash. Chris Kempczinski went viral for taking a tiny bite out of his burger, which he kept calling a &quot;product.&quot; He said his mother taught him [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}