Flaming Hot on HULU and Disney Plus. Pretty good movie but is it based on a lie?
Spoiler alert ‼️
For the last decade, Richard Montañez has been telling the story of how he invented Flamin Hot Cheetos. The world has been eating it up.It goes like this: He was working as a janitor at Frito-Lays Rancho Cucamonga plant when he dreamed up a chile-covered Cheeto and believed in himself enough to call up the chief executive to pitch his spicy idea.
Corporate backstabbers tried to sabotage Montañez for stepping out of line, but he out-hustled them, driven by a hunger to succeed. Flamin Hots became a runaway hit, and Montañez rose through the ranks and became an icon.
Watching his many recorded speaking engagements, its easy to see why his story has taken off. Theres just one problem: Montañez didnt invent Flamin Hot Cheetos, according to interviews with more than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself.
None of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin Hot test market, Frito-Lay wrote in a statement to The Times, in response to questions about an internal investigation whose existence has not been previously disclosed. We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot-cheetos-richard-montanez
For the record, Original Cheetos are the best.