Why Colonel Sanders Actually Hated His Own Fast Food Chain

There's arguably no real-life person who's become a better-known face of a fast food brand than Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Harland Sanders. The man who began the KFC empire (Here's why KFC shortened its name) out of a Kentucky gas station remained a brand ambassador until he died in 1980 at 90, decades after he'd sold the business. But that didn't stop him from publicly trashing the iconic fried chicken chain he created.

An amiable Southern gentleman image belied the shady things about Colonel Sanders, and he could be disagreeable and outspoken when corporate owners messed with his recipes. He first sold Kentucky Fried Chicken and its more than 600 franchises at the time to a group of investors in 1964 for $2 million. But it was after KFC was sold to food company Heublein in 1971 that Sanders got vocal about the changes to the food. Sanders spoke multiple times about how awful he thought the gravy was, comparing it to wallpaper paste. But he also went after the chicken, telling Kentucky's Courier Journal that the extra crispy version was a "fried doughball stuck on some chicken." And this all happened while he was still the KFC spokesman.

Hueblein executives didn't give Sanders the boot — apparently believing his image was still an asset — but did say his original gravy recipe was too complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. But then Sanders made a move that crossed the line for the company.

Colonel Sanders wasn't just loud about KFC's subpar food. He started making plans to franchise a restaurant he and his wife launched in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1968 called The Colonel's Lady. Heublein swooped in and filed suit, contending that it owned the rights to his name. Sanders countersued over the efforts to stop him, also claiming that KFC was wrongly using his image to promote products he didn't create.

The parties settled in 1975, with Sanders getting $1 million and remaining a brand representative. The franchise plans were dropped and the Kentucky restaurant was allowed to remain open, renamed Claudia Sanders Dinner House. Sanders was given an opportunity to demonstrate how KFC's food should be made, and he agreed to stop criticizing the brand in public.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold to R.J. Reynolds two years after Sanders' death, in 1982. PepsiCo acquired it in 1986, then spun it off into what is now Yum! Brands, in 1997. With more than 30,000 KFC restaurants in 150 countries (The world's fanciest KFC is in New York State), Sanders' smiling face still beams from the logo at each one of them.