About

Burger King Foot Lettuce refers to a scandal in which a Burger King employee was photographed standing in two plastic tubs of lettuce with shoes on. Shortly after its initial appearance on 4chan, the location of the Burger King restaurant was subsequently identified and the photograph in question was sent to local and national news outlets, ultimately resulting in the termination of the employee. In late 2017, 4chan's doxing story resurfaced on social media after a dramatic retelling of the episode went viral on YouTube and became a subject of copypastas, remixes and parodies. In December 2024, YouTuber Epic Alex Time posted a video claiming to be the man photographed standing in the lettuce. On July 10th, 2025, Alex reportedly died.

Origin

On July 16th, 2012, an anonymous 4chan user identifying himself as a Burger King employee posted a picture of himself standing in two boxes of lettuce in the kitchen, along with the caption: "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King."

Spread

4chan users discovered the Exif data on the photo, which they used to surmise that the picture was taken in a Burger King on Mayfield Road in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. They began contacting local news outlets in Ohio as well as the manager of the
restaurant.

Clevescene^[1] broke the story on July 17th, 2012 and upon showing the picture to the Mayfield Road Burger King manager, she said, "Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired." A compilation of comments from 4chan leading to the exposure was posted to Imgur^[2] on July 17th. The story was covered by national news sites including Today,^[3] Gawker,^[4] and The Daily Dot.^[5]

Top15s' Video / Burger King Foot Lettuce Copypasta

On November 11th, 2017, the story was recalled on the YouTube channel Top15s in a video called "Top 15 Mysteries Solved by 4Chan" (shown below). The video gained over 1.4 million views.

The narration of the clip by a user named Chills caught the attention of other internet users. On November 19th, YouTuber ling isolated the introduction to the video where Chills begins to talk about "Burger King Foot Lettuce." The clip gained over 15,000 views (shown below, left). YouTuber madison did the same on January 24th, 2018, gaining over 23,000 views (shown below, right). After these videos were posted, additional remixes began appearing on YouTube. The text of the Top15s video was posted to Reddit's /r/copypasta^[6] on January 28th, 2018.

Number 15: Burger king foot lettuce. The last thing you'd want in your Burger King burger is someone's foot fungus. But as it turns out, that might be what you get. A 4channer uploaded a photo anonymously to the site showcasing his feet in a plastic bin of lettuce. With the statement: "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King." Admittedly, he had shoes on.

But that's even worse.

The post went live at 11:38 PM on July 16, and a mere 20 minutes later, the Burger King in question was alerted to the rogue employee. At least, I hope he's rogue. How did it happen? Well, the BK employee hadn't removed the Exif data from the uploaded photo, which suggested the culprit was somewhere in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. This was at 11:47. Three minutes later at 11:50, the Burger King branch address was posted with wishes of happy unemployment. 5 minutes later, the news station was contacted by another 4channer. And three minutes later, at 11:58, a link was posted: BK's "Tell us about us" online forum. The foot photo, otherwise known as exhibit A, was attached. Cleveland Scene Magazine contacted the BK in question the next day. When questioned, the breakfast shift manager said "Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired." Mystery solved, by 4chan. Now we can all go back to eating our fast food in peace.

On March 5th, 2018, YouTuber Saltydkan uploaded a video in which he read the text of the original video but without Chills' inflection, gaining over 119,000 views (shown below, left). On March 3rd, YouTuber grandayy uploaded a parody of the video which gained over 1.4 million views (shown below, right).

Epic Alex Time

On December 31st, 2024, YouTuber^[7] Epic Alex Time posted a video titled, "Burger King Foot Lettuce Guy (Full Story)." In the video, he claims to be the one standing in the lettuce in the Burger King foot lettuce photo. The video gained over 24,000 views in seven months.

In February 2025, Know Your Meme^[8] interviewed Alex about the meme. During the interview, Alex talked about his struggles with seizures. He claimed that he regretted stepping in the lettuce and that if he could go back in time and undo it, he would. He also confirmed that the incident got him fired from Burger King. Alex talked about wanting to launch a career in content creation and continued to post videos on his YouTube channel over the following months.

Death

On July 10th, 2025, X^[9] user @default_friend posted, "A friend of Alex’s reached out to me today. He passed away. RIP, friend." Prior to this, his death was announced on his Discord server, Foot Lettuce Family, resulting in an outpouring of condolences for him. On July 11th, a GoFundMe^[10] was started by Alex's brother to raise funds for his funeral,

Search Interest

External References