Mitt Romney’s Father Got Free McDonald’s Hamburgers For Life

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That headline is true. Mitt Romney told the story Tuesday about his father, George Romney, who received carte blanche at McDonald’s until his death in 1995. Romney spoke during a fundraiser in Chicago, which was filled with executives from the restaurant industry. This is from the pool report:

“You know how boys liked to go through their dad’s top drawer, just to sort of see what he has in there, maybe find an old coin he might not miss?” Romney asked. He said he went through his father’s drawer one day when he was in his teens or early 20s.

“I found a little paper card, a little pink card, and it said this entitles George W. Romney to a lifetime of a hamburger, a shake and French fries at McDonald’s,” Romney said. “It was signed by the hand of Ray Kroc. My dad had done a little training lesson or whatever for McDonald’s when there was
just a handful of restaurants and I saw this thing and was like, ‘This is a gold mine, dad! What are you doing?’”

“So I had it laminated,” Romney continued. “My dad, as you know, would go almost every day to a McDonald’s restaurant and get either a hamburger or a fish filet sandwich. And he would present this little card and of course the person behind the counter would look and say, well, what is that? They’d never seen something like that, but he said it was never turned
down. They always honored it.”

Ray Kroc, of course, was the man who built McDonald’s into most successful fast food company in the world. He died in 1984.

(PHOTOS: The Rich History of Mitt Romney)