Jared Fogle
Jared Scott Fogle is an American former spokesman who appeared in advertising campaigns for Subway from 2000 to 2015, until an FBI investigation led to him being convicted of child sex tourism and possessing child pornography.
While a student at Indiana University, Fogle lost between 1998 and 1999. Having frequented a Subway restaurant as part of his diet plan, he was hired to help advertise the company the following year. Fogle's popularity led to his appearances in over 300 commercials during his 15 years with Subway, alongside other media appearances.
Allegations of Fogle having inappropriate relations with minors began in 2007 but did not gain traction until 2015 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered that he received child pornography from an associate. Pleading guilty to the child sex tourism and child pornography charges the same year, Fogle was sentenced to 15 years and eight months in federal prison. As of 2026, he remains incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood.
Early life
Jared Scott Fogle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 23, 1977, to Norman and Adrienne Fogle. He has a younger brother and sister. Raised in a Jewish home, he had a bar mitzvah while on a trip to Israel, and was confirmed by his Conservative-Reconstructionist synagogue.In 1995, Fogle graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis. He graduated from Indiana University Bloomington in 2000 and then worked briefly in the revenue management department at American Trans Air.
Career
Subway campaign
Fogle first came to media attention in April 1999, via an article published in the Indiana Daily Student written by a former dormmate about Fogle losing by exercising and eating a diet of Subway sandwiches. Subsequently, Fogle was featured in a Men's Health magazine article, "Stupid Diets ... that Work!" According to the article, Fogle had become obese – at one point weighing – through lack of exercise and eating junk food.After developing sleep apnea and edema as a result of his weight, Fogle changed his eating habits by making the switch to eating at Subway, replacing his 10,000-calorie-per-day food consumption with one small turkey sub and one large veggie sub, along with some baked potato chips and diet soda, totaling about 2,000 calories. A Chicago-area Subway franchisee took Fogle's story to Subway's Chicago-based advertising agency.
As a test, the company ran a regional television advertising campaign. The first ad aired on January 1, 2000, introducing Fogle and his story with the following disclaimer: "The Subway diet, combined with a lot of walking, worked for Jared. We're not saying this is for everyone. You should check with your doctor before starting any diet program. But it worked for Jared."
The introductory test ads were a success, so Fogle subsequently appeared in more television commercials as well as sponsored in-store appearances throughout the United States. Fogle would give talks on the benefits of fitness and healthy eating, and later came to be known as The Subway Guy.
In 2002, Fogle was the subject of an episode of South Park titled "Jared Has Aides". Fogle has stated that while the episode had "typical tasteless humor", the fact that an entire episode was devoted to him was "very flattering". He added, "you know you've made it when shows like South Park start parodying you". He was then later parodied in the 2017 video game South Park: The Fractured but Whole; though this occurred two years after his child pornography conviction.
In February 2008, a Subway campaign called "Tour de Pants" celebrated Fogle maintaining his weight loss for a decade. As part of the campaign, Fogle made an announcement that he would retire his pair of 62-inch pants to a museum at the end of the advertising tour. Beginning in 2008, Fogle's presence in Subway advertisements decreased amid the company's emphasis on its "$5 Footlong" promotion.
Fogle's role in Subway afforded him some other opportunities, such as appearances in WWE in 2009 and 2011. By 2013, Fogle had filmed more than 300 commercials and continued to make appearances and speeches for the company. Subway attributed one third to one half of its growth in sales to Fogle, with revenue having tripled from 1998 to 2011.
Fogle made appearances in the Sharknado film series, beginning with Sharknado 2: The Second One. He had a cameo appearance in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, though this was cut from the Syfy Channel broadcast version a week before its premiere when his house was searched by the FBI. He also appeared in the 2011 Adam Sandler film Jack and Jill.
Jared Foundation
In 2004, Fogle established the Jared Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on raising awareness about childhood obesity through educational programs and tools provided to parents, schools, and community organizations.On April 29, 2015, Russell Taylor, director of the Jared Foundation, was arrested at his Indianapolis home on charges of child exploitation, possession of child pornography, and voyeurism. According to court records, Taylor and his then-wife, Angela Baldwin, sexually molested young girls and installed cameras in their house to film the victims without their knowledge. Fogle severed all ties with Taylor immediately following the arrest. Taylor attempted suicide on May 6, 2015 at the Marion County Jail and was placed on life support. Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges on September 1, 2015, and was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison on December 10, 2015. The sentence was thrown out in March 2020 when it emerged that Taylor's lawyer had failed to challenge three charges that were not supported by the evidence. The judge who originally imposed the sentence, Tanya Walton Pratt, said that this failure tainted the entire plea deal. Prosecutors filed a new indictment for 30 charges of producing and distributing child pornography in April. Taylor filed a petition to plead guilty that May, formally pleading guilty in November 2021. On May 9, 2022 he was sentenced to 27 years in prison, identical to his original sentence. In October 2021, Baldwin was convicted of child exploitation and producing and possessing child pornography, and was sentenced to 33 years in prison.
In August 2015, a USA Today article reported that the Jared Foundation had not issued any grants, nor had it given funds for its stated purpose. The article further noted that, on average, the foundation spent $73,000 a year, with the majority of that figure used to pay the salary of the foundation's executive director. Furthermore, according to the foundation’s tax records, more than a quarter of their funds were unaccounted for. Daniel Borochoff, president of the non-profit charity watchdog group CharityWatch, was quoted in the USA Today article as saying, "If Jared was really interested in helping children through his foundation, he could have gotten more money. As with a lot of celebrities, the charity appears to be more about image-enhancement than charitable deeds."
The Secretary of State of Indiana dissolved the organization in February 2012 because it did not pay the required $5 annual reporting fees during the two previous years, despite being requested to do so on multiple occasions.
Legal history
Child pornography investigation and arrest
In 2007, Fogle came to the attention of state and federal law enforcement agencies after Sarasota, Florida journalist and radio host Rochelle Herman-Walrond told the Sarasota Police Department he made lewd comments to her about middle school-age girls; she had met Fogle at a local middle school for a health event, as he was in Sarasota for his speaking tour. She made recordings of Fogle's remarks and saved text messages between them, and then went to the FBI, where agents asked her to record her conversations with him. Herman-Walrond befriended Fogle and for the next four years surreptitiously recorded her conversations with him as part of an ongoing federal investigation. She recorded him making several remarks about having had sex with underage girls and asking her to install a webcam in her children's rooms so he could watch them; ultimately, the FBI could not pursue a case against Fogle using the recordings because they needed more substantive evidence against him.During the investigation into Russell Taylor's child pornography operation, authorities discovered that Taylor had traded sexually explicit photos and videos of children, some as young as six, with Fogle, including images of his own stepdaughters. Taylor, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison, was later named an unindicted co-conspirator in the FBI's case against Fogle. "What we found in Russell Taylor's home and on his computers led us to Jared Fogle," said Tim Horty, a spokesman for the United States Department of Justice.
On July 7, 2015, the FBI and Indiana State Police investigators raided Fogle's Zionsville, Indiana residence and arrested him on charges of distribution and receipt of child pornography; computers and other electronic equipment were removed from his home. The same day, a spokesperson for Subway announced that the company and Fogle had mutually agreed to suspend their business relationship; subsequently, Subway removed all references to Fogle from its website.
Following Fogle's arrest, the FBI also subpoenaed a series of text messages made in 2008 between Fogle and Subway franchisee Cindy Mills, with whom he was having a sexual relationship at the time. In these messages, Fogle talked about sexually abusing children ranging in age from 9 to 16, told her to sell herself for sex on Craigslist, and asked her to arrange for him to have sex with her 16-year-old cousin. Mills's lawyer said that she had alerted Subway's corporate management about the text messages, but that they had responded that because Fogle was not a Subway employee, there was no violation. Subway representatives said they had no record of Mills's allegations.