The media acts like I, Prince Whopper Junior, was preordained to be the next Burger King. I’m tired of the snickering claims that I “failed up the burger ladder.” Because nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the door might have been slightly ajar, but I had to walk through it. And once I was inside, I drank all the milkshakes and yelled, “How do you like me now!”

Do you know how hard it is to get the respect of the Whopper Court when everyone assumes you only got the job because your last name is Junior? I had to earn my Triple Stack Scepter. I passed the Flame-Grilled Trials—40 straight hours in the inferno pit, flipping patties blindfolded while reciting the Burger Constitution. (“In flame we trust, in beef we believe, in sesame buns we unite.”)

You think this job was handed to me? Please! There’s no Divine Right of Meat Monarchs (a term that I just made up and is definitely not an old family saying). The Burger Kingdom is a strict meritocracy—it says so right on our HR web page. The selection committee could have picked literally anyone. They evaluated dozens of candidates across four key metrics, and here’s how I did:

1. Customer Satisfaction
Bottomless Fry-days was my brainchild. Customers ate it up. Though we did get a few visits from the vice squad when a small number of people misunderstood the promotion and removed their pants like they were on a Zoom call.

2. Thinking Outside the Bun
While my less ambitious contemporaries were content to put stores in airports and malls, yours truly had the cutting-edge idea to install open-flame grills at gas stations, our most explosive promotion ever. Did this initiative result in the largest insurance payout in company history? It did. But I was able to pass the blame off on my former chief of staff. Because that’s what kings do.

3. Brand Awareness
You know the catchy “You Rule” marketing slogan? That was someone else. But I came up with the 2019 Super Bowl ad, with Mike Tyson taking a bite out of a Double Whopper and screaming, “This tastes better than Evander Hollyfield’s ear!” Over 100 million people watched that ad. At least 30 million of them vomited, but the publicity was priceless.

4. Genetic Similarity to the Reigning King
I blew away the field on this metric. The only one even close was my sister, Princess Pickles. It’s no secret that my half-sour sibling has always been the burnt fry in my onion rings. She’s the “responsible” one—always going on about food safety, sustainability, and “not burning down the kingdom.” So I was relieved when she turned the job down due to the company mission being “incompatible with her vegetarian values.”

So go ahead, call me a “Nepo Baby” if you want. But remember this: the fryolator of life doesn’t care who your father is—it only cares if you can handle the heat. And no one handles the heat better than me. Besides my sister and maybe a few dozen staffers. When I inherit the paper crown, it will be because I earned it, not because my Dad wore it first. (Between you and me, the old man doesn’t have much time left. His blood is mostly burger grease at this point.) And once I’m on the throne, I’m turning Burger King into Burger Empire. Tim Horton’s is my first acquisition target.

“You Rule?” You’re damn right I do!