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Over 10 years after the world witnessed the swift downfall of Southern comfort chef Paula Deen, she’s attempting to set the record straight.
Paula set out to tell her side of the story in the documentary “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story,” which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
The celebrity chef famously sunk her multi-million-dollar cooking empire amid accusations of racist behavior. The nail in Paula’s coffin was her own admission that she once used the N-word.
The former Food Network star admitted she’s still “not OK” years after her quick demise in the industry.
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Paula Deen opened up about the racial slur scandal that ruined her career in 2013 in “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story.” (Jamie McCarthy/WireImage)
“We lost it all,” Paula told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview about the new documentary, which was directed by Billy Corben.
“I disagree with that,” her son, Bobby Deen, chimed in.
“Mom, I’m sorry to correct you,” he added. “We have not lost it all. By far. Our family is intact. We’re alive. This was 2013, a long time ago. And our beautiful business has thrived and survived this whole time. We have beautiful families. We have far from lost everything. Far from it.”
“Son, when I say I lost everything, within 24 hours I lost every job I had,” Paula recalled. “Food Network was first to jump off, then Walmart, Target. … It was just everybody.”
Paula Deen appeared on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2015, two years after the scandal. (Adam Taylor/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
Paula was reminded that even after the scandal and subsequent fallout, she appeared on “Dancing with the Stars” and kept multiple restaurants open.
“I think a lot of people from the outside would look at this and agree with Bobby that you’re doing OK all in all,” The Hollywood Reporter journalist noted.
The celebrity chef responded, “I’m not OK in here [points to her chest]. I’m not OK in here. Until both sides get out, the whole entire dirty truth.”
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Paula Deen remained in business, running multiple restaurants despite the public fallout over the racial slur. (Beck Starr/FilmMagic)
In 2012, Paula was sued by an employee at one of the restaurants she ran with her brother.
Lisa Jackson, the general manager of Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House, threatened to sue Paula and her brother over alleged workplace behavior. Jackson offered to settle and not take her claims public if Paula paid her $1.25 million, according to the celebrity chef.
“[A settlement] is bulls—,” Paula said in the documentary, according to US Weekly. “Bubba and I both agreed that it was not right to pay someone for something that is not true. … I wanted to clear our names.”
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Paula Deen admitted to using the N-word during a lawsuit deposition in 2013. (Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images)
During a deposition for the lawsuit — the race discrimination claims by Jackson were later dismissed — Paula was asked if she had ever used the N-word in her life. She said, “Yes, of course.” In “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story,” Paula explained she answered the question truthfully but was referring to a time years before – not in her restaurants.
According to Paula, she used the language when speaking with her husband after being robbed at gunpoint at a bank in 1987. At the time, Paula worked as a bank teller and a Black man held a gun to her temple. Eugene Thomas King Jr. was later convicted and apologized to Deen in 2013 in an interview with Business Insider.
The new documentary featured legal experts who claimed the question asked was irrelevant because Paula didn’t say the N-word at her restaurant.
“Not one time did the attorney step up and say, ‘That’s not a legitimate question,’” Paula said in the documentary.
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To this day, Paula Deen claims she never used the racial slur at her restaurants or towards her staff. (Larry Marano/Getty Images For SOBEWFF)
Paula told The Hollywood Reporter seeing her allies abandon her during the fallout was “heart-wrenching.”
“Because these people knew me,” she said. “But they weren’t willing to buck the ink.”
Paula insisted she never used any type of inflammatory language at any restaurant she owned or operated in the documentary.
“When they lay me down, I do not want my tombstone to say, ‘Here lies the body of a racist,'” she said in the film.
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