The Girl in My Bathtub

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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-Lay's 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, it's easy to see why his story has taken off.

Montañez is a charismatic speaker, and his tale of a Mexican American underdog whose ingenuity conquered the corporate world is a rags-to-riches fable baked into the origin of a wildly popular snack.

Montañez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.

His second memoir, Flamin' Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man's Rise from Janitor to Top Executive, is out in June from an imprint of Penguin Random House.

A biopic based on his life, to be directed by Eva Longoria and produced by Christian super-producer DeVon Franklin for Searchlight Pictures, is set to begin filming this summer. Both the book and the movie were sold after bidding wars — Montañez's story is undeniably hot.

There's just one problem: Montañez didn't 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."

Flamin' Hots were created by a team of hotshot snack food professionals starting in 1989, in the corporate offices of Frito-Lay's headquarters in Plano, Texas. The new product was designed to compete with spicy snacks sold in the inner-city mini-marts of the Midwest. A junior employee with a freshly minted MBA named Lynne Greenfeld got the assignment to develop the brand — she came up with the Flamin' Hot name and shepherded the line into existence.

Not a Mexican janitor, but a white woman with an MBA.

The core of Montañez's story rested on the pitch meeting that he says changed his life, where he sold his idea of Flamin' Hot Cheetos directly to the Frito-Lay elite. In his new memoir, he lays out a dramatic scene, with more than 100 people, most of them "leading executives," assembled alongside the CEO in a conference room at the Rancho Cucamonga complex to witness his presentation.

The Times spoke with 20 people who worked at the Frito-Lay divisions responsible for new product development 32 years ago, when Flamin' Hot Cheetos were first extruded into existence. None recalls anything like the episode Montañez describes taking place.

In telling after telling, Montañez says he felt empowered to invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos after watching a motivational video from Enrico, the CEO of the company, that encouraged all Frito-Lay workers to "act like owners" and take charge of the business.

And time after time, he says that Enrico was the CEO whom he boldly called to pitch his idea and that Enrico flew out to Rancho Cucamonga weeks later to witness his pitch in person. In his new memoir, Montañez clearly restates this claim: Enrico's name appears 60 times in the text.

But Enrico did not work at Frito-Lay when Flamin' Hot products were developed.

He dropped out of school — but not, as he has claimed in past media appearances, after the fourth grade, or, as he claims in his new memoir, before the sixth. Montañez appears to have made it to at least the ninth grade — he is listed in the freshman class section of the Chaffey High yearbook of 1972 but disappears from the area's yearbooks after that.

Around [March 1994], Montañez began working on a line of products pitched specifically at the Latino market in the Los Angeles area: Sabrositas.

Siewczynski's recollection of the Sabrositas marketing campaign aligns with what Montañez describes in his memoir — though Montañez attaches his story to Flamin' Hot products, not the Sabrositas launch.

He remembers Montañez as a colorful, engaging storyteller, well liked by all of his co-workers at the plant. And he remembers a creation story, but one that focused on Lime and Chile Fritos, not Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

In his new memoir, Montañez writes that he tapped into the local network of women hosting Tupperware parties to get Flamin' Hot Cheetos out to customers in Southern California as a way to bolster the struggling test market.

Siewczynski recalls the same story — for Sabrositas.

After the investigation and his retirement, Montañez has also repeatedly posted to his social media accounts photographs of what he claims are original design materials for Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Many have recently been deleted.

One photograph, posted to Instagram in October 2019 but now deleted, shows four pieces of lined notebook paper, labeled "mild," "reg," "hot" and "extra hot," with Cheetos piled on top of each. At the bottom of one, Montañez signed his name and wrote the date "1988."

In another post, now deleted, he wrote that he worked on the Doritos Salsa Rio flavor in 1998 — a product that first hit test markets in 1987, according to Advertising Age articles from that year.

The producers of his biopic, despite being informed of problems by Frito-Lay in 2019, announced a cast for the movie in early May, and that the film would begin shooting this summer in New Mexico.

Longoria told Variety that it has been her "biggest priority to make sure we are telling Richard Montañez's story authentically."

Latinx advocates won't like it, but the story of the mind and machinations of a man obsessed with falsely claiming to be the inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos is a much more interesting film than an inspirational biopic.

Shattered Glass 2: Flamin' Hot Boogaloo.

Adam Riff™ Clip of the Week

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20. The Policemen (That Damn Michael Che, S01E01)

Honourable Mention

Stray Observations

  • "I am stressed out enough as it is, being surrounded by all these men in polyester." (Pose, S03E03)
  • "Huh?! You say something?"
    "No."
    "Oh. Thought somebody without a hammer said something." (Pose, S03E03)
  • "If you could just tone it down a little."
    "No! I don't think so. My whole life is dedicated to toning it up, about settling for more. More love, more finery, more jewels, more power, more money. More, more, more! The pain of your disapproval will no longer distract me from going after everything I deserve in this world." (Pose, S03E03)
  • Pentatonix (Hacks, S01E01)
  • "Why would they put the kitchen shit up here?"
    "Oh, shit. Is that a Vitamix?" (Hacks, S01E01)
  • "I tried you a few times last night."
    "Oh, sorry. I was fucking my Postmate." (Hacks, S01E01)
  • "By the way, so cool they let you move into a Cheesecake Factory." (Hacks, S01E01)
  • Home soda fountain (Hacks, S01E02)
  • "Think of the Obenchain-McMillan family!"
    "I don't give a fuck about the Obenchain-McMillans! They probably owned slaves!" (Hacks, S01E02)
  • "We'll see if we can get this girl to have an abortion so you don't have to be a pig no more." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E01)
  • "I lost everything. My house, my money, my friends, I lost my damn mind, all 'cause of hoes!"
    "Hey. You need to not call women that."
    "I'm not talking about 'women.' All rectangles are not squares." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E02)
  • "I'd like to enjoy your vagina like I enjoy my cigarettes – right down to the butt." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E02)
  • "I'm gonna call an ambulance right now."
    "No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't call the ambulance. Don't."
    "Why not?"
    "They're gonna charge me, like, $8,000. Fuck that!"
    "What? Nigga, you got shot."
    "I know, but me and my lady trying to get this house. I don't want that on my credit right now. Just call a Lyft."
    […]
    "They just caught me slipping and tried to assassinate me on Grand Street. My boy calling a Lyft 'cause the ambulance gonna take too slow. That's a real nigga right there."
    "Nigga, who are you talking to?"
    "My Live."
    "Why are you on Live right now?"
    "I got 34 people watching. That's the most I ever had."
    "34?"
    "Yeah, lookit. Remember Porsche?"
    "Yeah."
    "Look. She in there. What's up?" (That Damn Michael Che, S01E03)
  • "Ain't no amount of money can pay me to finger you." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E03)
  • "Now, I want y'all to support this brother and his little show. I've seen it. It's not for me. I miss Chappelle's Show. Or Martin. Or, remember In Living Color?"
    "Yeah, they're all great shows. It's just, there's room for everybody."
    "Those brothers had characters.
    "I do a different thing."
    "I get what you're trying to do. I like Atlanta. I looooove Fleabag."
    "Fleabag?"
    "But the writing was so strong on those shows." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E06)
  • "She's my wife."
    "Bro, that ain't your wife. She for the streeeeeets!"
    "What is that supposed to mean? She's from Montauk." (That Damn Michael Che, S01E06)
  • That Damn Michael Che Season Grade: C
  • ♫: Outkast – "B.O.B." (The Underground Railroad, S01E01)
  • "FUBU, huh?" (The Underground Railroad, S01E02)
  • "You are the Negro of the future." (The Underground Railroad, S01E02)
  • "The nigger shall not prosper, lest he prosper in the white man's vision of him." (The Underground Railroad, S01E02)
  • "North Carolina is God's vision of America." (The Underground Railroad, S01E03)
  • "We're crawling in a bowl of ashes. And what's left when it's all gone? Just dark powder for the wind to take." (The Underground Railroad, S01E05)
  • ♫: Kendrick Lamar – "Money Trees" (The Underground Railroad, S01E06)
  • "Leave it to a bunch of Africans to build a place underground where you can drink the world's best coffee." (The Underground Railroad, S01E08)
  • "Sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth. Well, here's one delusion for you: that we can escape slavery. That we can buy our way out from under its scourge. We cannot escape slavery. Its scars will never fade. Even on skin like mine, it will always be with us. When you saw your mother sold off, your father beaten, your sister abused by some boss or master, did you ever think that you would sit here today without chains, without the yoke, among a new family? Everything that you ever knew told you that freedom was a trick. Yet here you are. And I'll tell you something else: Valentine Farm is a delusion. Who told you that the Negro deserved a place of refuge? Who told you that you had that right? That's right. Every minute of your life's suffering has argued otherwise. By every fact of history, it can't exist, so this place must be a delusion, too." (The Underground Railroad, S01E09)
  • "America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes, believes with all its heart, that it is their right to take the land, to kill Indians, make war, enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist if there's any justice in the world, for its very foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. It wouldn't exist, but here we are." (The Underground Railroad, S01E09)
  • "Our color cannot be undone." (The Underground Railroad, S01E09)
  • "The American imperative…is a splendid thing. A beacon…a shining beacon…born of a necessity. Necessity and virtue. Between the hammer and the anvil. Yeah. Conquer and build and civilize. And lift up the lesser races… Well, if not lift up, subjugate. And if not subjugate…exterminate, eliminate. Our destiny…a divine prescription. The American imperative." (The Underground Railroad, S01E09)
  • ♫: Childish Gambino – "This Is America" (The Underground Railroad, S01E09)
  • The Underground Railroad Season Grade: B

The New AR™TV World Drama Champion: The Underground Railroad
Still the AR™TV World Comedy Champion: Girls5eva

Beef Booze Broads

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Previously on Adam Riff™:

Look at this fucking pool deck:

// Las Vegas, NV


A tale of two pool decks. You have to pass through a metal detector to enter Stadium Swim.

Circa is home to the largest sportsbook in the world, the largest pool amphitheatre in America, and the longest indoor bar in Nevada. No facial tissue in its rooms, though.

All the standalone cocktail lounges on Strip casino floors look the same, but were designed by different firms.

Massage girls are back! At least, downtown.

Tilman Fertitta is a broke boy who owns Golden Nugget Las Vegas, which owns the biggest gold nugget in existence.

Oh, it's only worth, like, $1.6 million.

Replicas of the nugget are on display at a number of Golden Nugget casinos. [source]

For the second time, I witnessed someone get a royal flush playing Pai Gow Poker.

I got bailed out by a five of a kind playing DJ Wild.

Has NBCUniversal tried to license The Office and Fast and Furious as slot machine themes?

Basura en la Gelatina de Carne

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Previously on Adam Riff™:


// Las Vegas, NV

Meow Wolf should've known better than to, in Vegas, populate singular computer stations with lengthy contextual videos and reading material. Good luck completing the Omega Mart experience on a weekend.

The celebrity chefs with restaurants at Paris Las Vegas are British and Italian.

Secret Nobu at Bally's? No, just an interim Nobu.

The Vegas Strip needs more secret bars and restaurants. Almost all of them [six!] are at the Cosmopolitan.

Two Louis Vuitton stores at Bellagio? Oh. One is men's, one is women's.

Planet Hollywood has two virtual female concierges – Ivy for the hotel and Jules for the mall.

Two of the top three highest grossing restaurants in Vegas are located at the remote end of the Strip.

Playing DJ Wild at Flamingo, I won $1000 on a flush bad beat against the dealer's four of a kind. My biggest haul to date.

Big Money Big Dick & Breakfast

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// Las Vegas, NV

A census of mask usage on the Vegas Strip would be interesting. Mask over nose. Mask under nose. No mask in sight. Age. Gender. Race.

What is the appeal of just lying in the sun around a pool?

When workers at a Vegas resort need a smoke break, they just have to go to the casino – except at Park MGM.

While playing DJ Wild at Harrah's, a man at a neighbouring Mississippi Stud table hit a straight flush progressive jackpot and won ~$60,000. He had to sign some form.

At Aria, I saw a man at a Pai Gow Poker table signing a form. Did he hit a jackpot? I wondered. I approached the table. A $300 minimum bet?! In the general casino? [The dealer forbade me from snapping a photo.] The highest Pai Gow Power minimum I'd ever seen is $50. Does this table normally exist? Was it a special request, hence the form?

A remix of "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)"? Who programs the music for Taco Bell Cantina?

DJ Whyt spinning in a corner of the Drybar at the Cosmopolitan on a Saturday afternoon.

Custom matching T-shirts, plastic yard cups – what happens in Vegas stays in landfills.

Adam Riff™ Clip of the Week

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19. New York Lonely Boy (Girls5eva, S01E03)

Stray Observations

  • "Well, I have an extra ticket to see Boygenius at the Met on Friday night." (Mare of Easttown, S01E03)
  • Mare's surname-embroidered backpack (Mare of Easttown, S01E03)
  • "What if it was your penis painted out there?" (Mare of Easttown, S01E03)
  • "Jinx!" (Mare of Easttown, S01E03)
  • "When white folks love you, you become raceless." (Pose, S03E01)
  • "Girl, get your ass over here. O.J. Simpson is on the run."
    "Who?"
    "O.J. Simpson. The football player actor. Um, Naked Gun, Hertz commercials."
    "Girl, bye." (Pose, S03E01)
  • "To think, I ditched my plans to see Michelle Pfeiffer in Wolf to watch this fucking car chase." (Pose, S03E01)
  • "Y'all know I loved me some Naked Gun 33 1/3." (Pose, S03E01)
  • ♫: Robin S. – "Show Me Love" (Pose, S03E02)
  • "I told you I don't eat after 9:00. I drink wine. For the antioxidants." (Pose, S03E02)
  • "Have you looked at your complexion? Gray is not a skin tone! You have hit epidermal rock bottom." (Pose, S03E02)
  • "You of all people want to talk about somebody being psychologically distorted? 'Cause you're a short-tempered, insecure narcissist."
    "A narcissist who glooooows, bitch!" (Pose, S03E02)
  • Elon Musk as Wario (Saturday Night Live, S46E18)
  • "It was great to see you. We'll catch up next time. There's so much to talk about. Brexit, tiny houses, Bindi Irwin is hot now." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Nobody gets more normal as they age except Nicole Richie." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Oh, God. I gotta make it match. I gotta make it all pit!" (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Don't try to walk out here all superior when you couldn't even tell this isn't the Dalai Lama. It's an old man dressed like a hot dog." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Want to start The Americans?"
    "Sure."
    "I know how we'll get this secret – through sex." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Sorry, are you sick of randos bugging you?"
    "No. Not at all…Derpy." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Oh, good. You still live here. Of course you do. Italians never move." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "Just tell me you don't need this like I do, and I will go back to L.A. via Bogota on Kirkland Airlines." (Girls5eva, S01E01)
  • "I saw a new clickbait ad that said you won't believe which one of us is Haley Joel Osment now." (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "You have to take it back or move it for us."
    "Curbside!"
    "But Declan has cycling arms." (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "Wickie, you can't wear those braids on TV."
    "Why?"
    "It's a white hairstyle. Christina, Gwen Stefani, Travolta in Battlefield Earth." (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "And…tagging industry bigshots! Simon Cowell. Babyface. Babylegs."
    "All the babies!"
    "#Newspapers." (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • ♫ "I made love to Ja Rule on it" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "How do I stop this? Do I press End and Accept?"
    "No, it's Ignore and Accept."
    "No, it's Ignore and Hold." (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "Everybody sing from your diaphragm."
    "Which one?" (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • ♫: "Dream Girlfriends" (Girls5eva, S01E02)
  • "They're in all the boroughs except Staten Island, 'cause there's never been an only child from there." (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • "It has been an entire Zendaya since you have recorded music." (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • ♫ "We Bought a Zoo" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • "Let's do something fun, huh?"
    "Okay, Mommy. Let's dance!"
    "Yes, let's dance! Let's dance! Okay, you want to do the Elmo Slide or—"
    "Alexa play The Daily."
    "Today on The Daily, our broken…"
    "Shut up, Michael Barbaro!" (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • "Okay, what flavor do you want, buddy?"
    "Earl Grey." (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • John Slattery's actual family (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • "You have a square car that is not fit for any music video, not even for a commercial about Maryland." (Girls5eva, S01E03)
  • "Where did you meet someone named Cray?"
    "At the Instagram wall in the vape lounge of the sriracha museum." (Girls5eva, S01E04)
  • "What else scares you?"
    "Everything. Panic attacks, guns, accidentally being a Karen. Just about anything prolapsing." (Girls5eva, S01E04)
  • ♫ "Judas is Dwight Schrute / And Jesus is Darryl" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E04)
  • ♫: "I'm Afraid [Dawn’s Song of Fears]" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E04)
  • "Do you have a Band-Aid?"
    ["Blood Tape"]
    "I'm not one for name brands." (Girls5eva, S01E05)
  • "I'm binging Emeril Live. I'm on the episode where they went HD. Now it's a hand vein show." (Girls5eva, S01E05)
  • "I'm putting her in a closet."
    "She's not granola bars." (Girls5eva, S01E05)
  • "I already got you an Uber."
    "Put in 'request conversation.'" (Girls5eva, S01E05)
  • "I mean, I dropped super gay hints. I insisted that I wear a helmet during 'Space Boys.'"
    ♫ "Space boys / It's a boy-kissing mission" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E05)
  • "I've worn a mask myself. When I starred in The Maskical, the musical."
    "♫ "I'm smokin'! / Alrighty, then" ♫
    "Wasn't 'alrighty, then' from Ace Ventura?"
    "It was a pastiche of the Jim Carrey oeuvre." (Girls5eva, S01E06)
  • "You slay my ass. I have no skin." (Girls5eva, S01E06)
  • "That rant was a tour de force. That's French for 'force tour.'" (Girls5eva, S01E06)
  • "If it's a woman, she better not be hotter than me. And if it's a man, he'd better be hotter than me. And if it's a sex cult, it'd better sweep the doc category at the Emmys." (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "What if we pretend someone hired us to sing for her?"
    "Her cousin Lauren."
    "Scooter Braun."
    "Her mom's friend Angie."
    "How about Lionel Richie?"
    "Her other cousin Kristin, who everybody hates."
    "Danger Mouse!" (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • Sara Bareilles doing Celine Dion (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "Are you fucking little crabs?" (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "You and I met briefly years ago, at Ashlee Simpson's Walk of Fame removal ceremony." (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "It's not a sunburn. I nodded off at Benihana." (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "The most intimate experience I had this year was riding a Citi Bike over cobblestones." (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • "If I got offered, literally, any other job than this one, I would take it. So many big pubes on tiny soaps." (Girls5eva, S01E07)
  • ♫ "The cast of Friends is pedophiles" ♫ (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • "I think this is Everclear." (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • "Do you know how much we're getting paid for this hockey show if we end up doing it?"
    "Well, the first offer was cab fare. But I really think that if we agree and back each other up, we can convince them that we live in Tarrytown." (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • "I know. It is cushy. My water-bra's Pellegrino, but don't you ever miss that energy you get when you're performing?
    I get it other ways now. Fortnite kills, certain bowel movements, impregnating my surrogate—shh, don't tell my wife we didn't use science and tubes, okay?" (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • "I just swallowed a little Lego man." (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • "I just pray Gal Gadot never sees what you did to her song 'Imagine.'" (Girls5eva, S01E08)
  • Girls5eva Season Grade: B

Still the AR™TV World Drama Champion: P-Valley
The New AR™TV World Comedy Champion: Girls5eva

Macrohard

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// Las Vegas Strip, NV

Caesars Entertainment owns Bally's Las Vegas.

Bally's Corporation owns Tropicana Las Vegas.

Caesars Entertainment operates, but does not own, Tropicana Atlantic City.

Caesars Entertainment does not own Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, nor any Caesars-branded properties.

The company that owns Caesars Palace also owns The Venetian Las Vegas – Rome and Venice.

The owners of The Venetian Macao sold The Venetian Las Vegas.

The owners of The Venetian Macao also own The Londoner Macao and The Parisian Macao. The Lisbonian Macau when?

The company that owns The Venetian Las Vegas should buy Paris Las Vegas and Excalibur and re-brand them as The Parisian Las Vegas and The Londoner Las Vegas.

Steve Wynn owns zero percent of Wynn Las Vegas.

Wikipedia » The Drew Las Vegas »

The Drew Las Vegas (formerly Fontainebleau Las Vegas) is a hotel and casino under construction on the Las Vegas Strip.

Construction began in February 2007.

On June 11, 2009, it was announced that construction had been halted while the project proceeded through bankruptcy. The resort was 70 percent complete.

In August 2017, the unfinished resort was sold to investment firm Witkoff Group.

Witkoff Group founder Steve Witkoff named The Drew after his deceased 22-year-old son, Andrew Witkoff, who died of an OxyContin overdose in 2011.

The resort was expected to open by November 2022.

In February 2021, Fontainebleau bought back the project, which was 75 percent complete.