Wendy's Nuggets Tweet: Carter Wilkerson Breaks Ellen DeGeneres' Record For Most Retweets

A Nevada teen earned himself free chicken nuggets for a year from fast food chain Wendy’s after a tweet he posted last month went viral and surpassed Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie tweet to register the most number of retweets ever.

Carter Wilkerson, 16, tweeted to the fast food chain last month, asking Wendy’s how many retweets it would take for him to get free nuggets for a year. The Ohio based company set a target of “18 million” for him, following which he urged twitter users to retweet — an act of sharing someone else’s tweet — his post till the near impossible target was reached.

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The target was especially an ambitious one for Wilkerson, who had not been retweeted even over 10 times prior to his chicken nugget tweet.

Captioned, “HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS,” the high school junior’s tweet reached around 3.5 million retweets Tuesday, crossing talk show host DeGeneres’ selfie from the Oscars, which was clicked by Hollywood star Bradley Cooper and featured big names like Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, among others.

While according to the initial deal, Wendy’s was supposed to provide Wilkerson with free nuggets if he was retweeted 18 million times, the company announced it would give him his free nuggets just after the teen crossed 3.43 million retweets.

In addition, the fast food chain said it would also donate $100,000 in his name to Columbus, Ohio-based non profit Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption.

“You’ve more than earned our respect ... and the nuggets,” Kurt Kane, chief concept and marketing officer for Wendy’s, said in a statement.

Wilkinson made an appearance on DeGeneres’ show — “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” —last month, where she gave him a supply of free Ellen-branded underwear for a year along with a television. The gifts were accompanied by a hilarious threat the gift would have to be given back if his tweet surpassed hers as the “most retweeted tweet of all time.”

After crossing DeGeneres’ retweet mark, Wilkinson jokingly tweeted to the talk show host if he could keep his gifts.

Wilkerson has repeatedly been referred to as the “Nugget Kid” since his tweet went viral, but told the New York Times in a Monday interview he did not take it badly.

“I think they’re all pretty jealous,” he said of his classmates. “Who doesn’t want to be the Nugget Kid?”

The high school athlete also takes his newfound responsibility as an internet celebrity very seriously and said: “When you gain internet fame, it’s important to use it for good.”

He has encouraged his followers to donate to Reno, Nevada-based Pinocchio’s Moms on the Run, a not for profit organization that supports women with breast cancer.

The high school student, currently in the midst of studying for AP tests and chalking out college applications, hopes this experience helps him in the future. He told the Times, “It’d be pretty cool to put on my college applications that I’m the No. 1 retweeted tweet of all time.”