Joey Chestnut, defending champion of the annual July Fourth hot-dog eating competition on New York City’s Coney Island, is excluded from this year’s event because he is sponsoring an all-veggie frankfurter of another brand, organisers said on June 11. {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Joey Chestnut is a top-ranked competitive eater from Indiana, US.
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jpg"} Joey Chestnut is a top-ranked competitive eater from Indiana, US. Photo: @joeychestnut/Instagram In a statement posted to its X (formerly Twitter) social media account, Major League Eating (MLE), which oversees Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot-dog eating contest, said it was “devastated” by Chestnut’s decision to switch commercial fealty to a rival frank. Chestnut, a construction engineer by trade and native of Indiana, said in his own statement on X that he was “gutted” to learn that he was being “banned” from the Nathan’s Famous contest after 19 years – but he promised his fans via social media that “you’ll see me eat again soon!!” It now emerges he will go head-to-head on Netflix in September with Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi, a former world record holder who won the same New York event six times in a row before he was beaten by Chestnut in 2007.
Here’s what we know about champion hot dog eater and soon-to.