Chick-fil-A CEO Dodges LGBTQ+ Rights Questions in First TV Interview

Chick-fil-A CEO Andrew Cathy refused three times this week to state the company's position on LGBTQ+ rights during his first-ever broadcast interview, and the backlash started within hours of airing.

Cathy sat down with the Today show's Craig Melvin, who pressed him directly on the chain's record. Asked how he feels about customers who have boycotted the brand, Cathy answered: "Well, for anybody that hadn't tried us, we'd love for you to come try and have our great-tasting food and the hospitality that we're known for."

That answer sidestepped the question entirely. Melvin tried again: "You don't want to talk about that chapter in Chick-fil-A's history?" Cathy repeated his line: "We're focused on serving everybody that's coming and eating with us."

The third attempt was the bluntest. "The company's official position on equal rights is?" Melvin asked. Cathy said the brand is "focused on hospitality" and "serving great-tasting food and great service." He never answered the question.

Why did the interview cause an immediate reaction?

The controversy dates to 2012, when it was reported that Cathy's father, Dan Cathy, who previously ran the company, had publicly stated that Chick-fil-A opposed gay marriage. Public documents from the period showed the company had donated millions of dollars to organizations that stood against LGBTQ+ rights.

After the interview aired on Wednesday, celebrities moved fast on social media. Actress Valerie Bertinelli commented on Today's Instagram post about the segment, writing that she has "never tried" the company's food and has "no plans to change that" after watching the CEO's answers. Chelsea Handler kept it shorter, writing "No thank you" under the clip.

Katie Couric went further and criticized the interview itself. She posted the exact quote from Cathy's father to show what she felt Melvin should have confronted. "This is what his father Dan Cathy said in 2012. 'We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition,'" Couric wrote. "A good follow up would have been: 'Do you agree with [your] father?'" She put the follow-up question Melvin never asked directly on the record.

Fast Company reached out to Chick-fil-A for comment on the interview but did not immediately hear back.

What does this mean for the brand?

The stakes are commercial, not just reputational. Chick-fil-A is one of the most popular fast food chains in America, and it is also one of the most divisive. Calls for boycotting the brand have emerged repeatedly since 2012, including during broader "anti-woke" consumer campaigns in recent years.

Cathy's strategy in the interview was consistent: redirect every question about values back to food and service. It's a playbook that has kept the chain's sales strong through more than a decade of controversy, but it left the company's official position on LGBTQ+ rights as undefined on Wednesday as it was in 2012. With boycott calls already resurfacing and high-profile names amplifying the clip, the interview that was meant to introduce Andrew Cathy to a national audience has instead handed critics fresh material — and a direct question from Katie Couric that the company will likely face again.