Nathan’s Famous won’t bar 17-time champion Joey Chestnut from competing at its hot dog eating contest this year, even after Chestnut pleaded guilty on April 20 to misdemeanor battery.
Chestnut was accused of hitting a man in an Indiana bar altercation on March 21. He was sentenced to 180 days of probation, which includes the July 4 date of the hot dog contest.
“Joey is not going to be penalized or barred from participating in this year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest,” a Nathan’s spokesperson told Front Office Sports. “This incident has nothing to do with Nathan’s.”
The contest is administered by Major League Eating (MLE), sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE). MLE co-founder George Shea told FOS that Chestnut’s incident “does not violate the organization’s code of conduct, as it occurred outside any organizational event or activity and was addressed by local authorities.”
Bar surveillance footage revealed that Chestnut slapped a man in the face after they initially shook hands with each other, according to Us Weekly. Chestnut told police the day after the incident that he was intoxicated when he struck the man. He also said then that the slap “looked like a joke” but presumed that he “must have taken offense” to something said by the victim.
According to police, Chestnut pulled the altercation victim forward and hit him, before “[standing] over him” and later moving toward him again. Officers also say that the victim endured a bodily injury as a result of the hit.
Chestnut was previously barred from Nathan’s annual contest in 2024 because he signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a Nathan’s competitor. He returned to—and won—the 2025 contest after signing a three-year contract to only endorse Nathan’s hot dogs, which is owned by Smithfield Foods. He is expected to compete this year at the Coney Island event.
“My feeling is this incident will in no way affect Joey’s ability to compete,” the Nathan’s spokesperson said. “Every July 4th Joey tries to shatter his own world record, and this year will be no different.”
Chestnut’s 17 total hot dog eating contest titles is a world record for a single person. In 2021, he ate 76 hot dogs and buns to win that year’s title, breaking his own record and setting the current record for most hot dogs eaten in the span of 10 minutes. First-place winners for the men’s and women’s contests earn $10,000 each.
First winning in 2007, Chestnut has historically been the main fixture of Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. The event averaged over one million viewers from 2021 to 2023 on various ESPN platforms, but dropped to 831,000 on ESPN2 when Chestnut was absent in 2024. In 2025, ratings shot up to 1.6 million on ESPN2.
—Ben Horney contributed to this story.
