Ellen DeGeneres Strikes a Deal With Wendy’s Nugget Kid

A plucky 16-year-old named Carter Wilkerson is poised to eclipse Ellen DeGeneres’s Twitter milestone thanks to a plea for free Wendy’s chicken nuggets that vent viral — and now the daytime talk show host wants to broker a deal to keep her tweet in the record books.

As you may recall, two weeks ago, Wilkerson hatched a plan to get free nuggets for a year:

18 million retweets is a potentially unattainable social media goal, but so far he’s racked up 3.1 million, which is just a few hundred thousand RTs short of breaking Ellen’s Oscars selfie record.

Last week, Ellen filmed a PSA-style segment with Bradley Cooper to encourage her fans to retweet her famous selfie. And this week, she decided to invite Wilkinson on her show to talk about a potential tweet war truce:

In the clip, Ellen pitches her idea: “I want people to retweet you, but when they retweet him, you must retweet my selfie as well.” To sweeten the pot, DeGeneres offers Wilkinson a flat screen TV and a year’s worth of Ellen-branded underwear. After the kid agrees to the plan to help Ellen’s tweet, she tells him: “If somehow you pass me, Carter, I will come to your house, I will take that TV back, I will take the underwear back, and do more.” Only time will tell if Ellen’s plan will pan out.

Although he’s now officially a bona fide social media star, Wilkerson insists that he didn’t launch this campaign with viral fame in mind. The kid explains: “Honestly, I just want chicken nuggets. I just have a love for the chicken nuggets.”
• Ellen DeGeneres makes deal with Wendy’s nugget boy Carter Wilkerson [NYDN]
• Wendy’s Nugget Fiend Comes Close to Breaking Twitter Record [Eater]