For a 15-year period from 2000 to 2015, Jared Fogle, an average Joe from Indiana, became a worldwide sensation. The young man, who was described by fellow high school students as being morbidly obese, shocked everyone when, while in college, he lost 245 pounds in a single year. The diet he was on was an even bigger shock: he ate Subway sandwiches daily.
It was a marketer’s dream and Subway picked up on the story immediately, leading to one of the biggest, longest-running, most successful fast-food campaigns ever in history. Fogle, meanwhile, earned a reported $15 million at the height of his fame. But behind the cheerful demeanor was a private life filled with dark secrets.
The rise and fall of Jared Fogle is featured in the three-part Investigative Discovery/Discovery+ docuseries Jared From Subway: Catching a Monster. While most people know the gist of the allegations, including that Fogle is now serving a 15+-year sentence on charges of child sex tourism and child pornography, some of the most revealing details from the docuseries are enough to make your skin crawl.
Note: some of the content discussed in this article is disturbing.
What Jared Fogle whispered in a journalist’s ear
The entire investigation was kicked off with one, in Jared’s eyes, seemingly innocuous statement. But the woman he spoke it to, journalist and radio host Rochelle Herman-Walrond, was so disturbed by his words that she felt she had to do something about it. Though she didn’t let on to her true feelings, she couldn’t shake the fact that his words were a clear indication that he was likely a pedophile.
What did he say? As the two sat together in a school, ready to film an interview, Fogle leaned over and whispered a comment about how “hot he thought middle school girls were.” The statement shook Herman-Walrond. She knew something was very wrong. In the days that followed, the words ate away at her spurring an amateur investigation.
The FBI knew Fogle was a pedophile but couldn’t do anything about it
Fans might wonder why Herman-Walrond didn’t go to the police immediately. She noted that she knew nothing would come of it because she had no actual proof, and Fogle could easily have said that she misheard him. She decided to try and get the proof by recording her conversations with him. When she eventually took her tapes to the FBI, she learned that while they contained damning proof of at least a sexual interest in minors, none of it would hold up in court. She obtained the recordings illegally, without first notifying him that she was recording him.
Most jarring: Herman-Walrond learned that in doing so, she technically committed a felony. The only way out of it was to continue doing what she was doing, this time working directly with the FBI as part of an official investigation. This process went on for years, with the FBI stating they could not charge Fogle until there was an overt act or proof that he actually did anything he was talking about.
