The rise and fall of Paula Deen’s television career is being chronicled in a new documentary titled “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story.”
Dean, 78, went from a local Savannah, Georgia, business owner to a Food Network standout thanks to her Southern-styled dishes. However, her expanding food empire was brought down by a racial slur controversy.
The network canceled Deen’s contracts with the cable channel after one of her former employees, Lisa Jackson, sued her for racial discrimination in 2013.
During a deposition for the suit, the Georgia-raised cookbook author acknowledged that she had used the N-word in the past. Her admission also cost her deals with Walmart, Target, and other retailers.
A judge eventually threw out Jackson’s claims, citing that the plaintiff is a white woman, so she had no standing to sue over alleged anti-Black bigotry.
Both sides later agreed to dismiss the case, leading to speculation that Deen reached a settlement with the ex-general manager of her Savannah restaurants.
With “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story” premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 6, The Hollywood Reporter recently spoke to Deen about her fall from grace. She completed the interview with her two adult sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen, for the article as well.
“This is something that ate at my gut every day. I would have been fine had the whole story been told — had the real story been told,” Deen explained to the publication.
She resumed, “They took this woman [the plaintiff], who is a known liar, they took her word and ran with it, and no one ever investigated any further. I was not going to be happy until the world saw the truth.”
Deen’s effort for redemption comes with contradictions. As the N-word scandal appeared to be destroying her reputation, the Daytime Emmy Award winner issued an apology that she now implies was insincere over a decade ago.
“I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong that I’ve done. I want to learn and grow from this,” Deen stated in a video posted to the internet in June 2013. “Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable.”
The longtime TV personality continued, “I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I beg you, my children, my team, my fans, my partners, I beg for your forgiveness. Please forgive me for the mistakes that I’ve made.”
Deen is now seemingly confessing that her public mea culpa was not genuine, claiming she was forced to make those statements by her handlers. She told the Hollywood Reporter, “They made me. They brought me to NY. These two men, I couldn’t tell you who they were.”
Her son, Jamie, jumped in to add, “Let’s straighten this up. Nobody made you apologize. The parameters they put you under, this team that you had up here, that…” But Deen interrupted, “It was two men, and it was a big, big, tall building in Manhattan.”
“They took me upstairs and introduced me to these two men, and they said, ‘You need to put out an apology.’ And I said, ‘What am I apologizing for? What am I supposed to be sorry about? I told the truth [at the deposition],’” Deen recalled.
She went on to say, “They were not supposed to release it until my team had approved it. I couldn’t approve walking across the street. I was broken. I was totally broken. So, I tried to do another one. And they said, ‘I guess that’s the best we’re going to get from you.’ Because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be apologizing for. For being truthful when the other side had lied?”
Deen’s attempted comeback after such chaotic controversy has ignited heated debates online. One Facebook comment section had fans of the former “Paula’s Home Cooking” host wanting to move on, while critics were not ready to forgive and forget.
“[A] better name would have been… ‘Consequences of My Own Actions: The Paula Dean Story,’ lol,” a Facebook user joked about the Billy Corben-directed “Canceled” film.
One supporter-turned-detractor admitted the N-word revelation in 2013 crossed the line, writing, “I was one of her biggest fans until that happened.”
In contrast, a Deen devotee on the social media platform proposed, “Get over it! She has paid the price for her past. Now it’s time to forgive.”
Yet another criticizer stated, “Cancel her, she didn’t give notice she was canceling her employees when she closed her restaurants.”
In August 2025, news broke that Deen reportedly shut down The Lady & Sons and The Chicken Box in Savannah without informing the staff of the restaurants’ closure.
“Thank you for all the great memories and for your loyalty over the past 36 years. We have endless love and gratitude for every customer who has walked through our doors,” read a statement on Deen’s official website.
A local news station reported that Dean failed to notify the employees that they would be losing their jobs. One staffer, Brayden Fennell, alleged that The Lady & Sons’ upper management did not send an email announcing the establishment was permanently shutting its doors until the morning of a scheduled shift.
“We got a very small severance,” Fennell revealed to WJCL, before adding, “And they told us to go file for unemployment.”
In 2013, Deen was also accused of taking advantage of and then abandoning her cooking partner, a Black woman named Dora Charles, by breaking her promise to ensure Charles would achieve financial compensation once Deen established herself as a TV star.
