A number of companies have built media empires on Paula Deen’s throwback Dixie sass, urging viewers customers to damn their health concerns and dig in. Now those same companies are being forces to deal with a less-savory byproduct of the mid-century South: racism.
Deen’s admission in a court deposition last month that she “used the N-word” has bubbled to a high boil on social-media networks and mainstream-media outlets alike, putting her corporate partners in a tricky and controversial spot. Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) may have the greatest exposure since it airs three Deen-based shows on its Food Network, where the Southern chef got her big break in 2002. In a statement, Food Network said that is “does not tolerate any form of discrimination” and “will continue to monitor the situation.”
Also close to the flare-up is Caesars Entertainment (CZR), which has Deen-branded restaurants in four of its casinos, and privately-owned Hoffman Media, the Alabama-based company that publishes a bimonthly magazine, Cooking With Paula Deen, as well as Southern Lady, TeaTime and Louisiana Cookin’. Caesars spokesman Gary Thompson said the company has “a longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion,” “strongly objects to any use of racial epithets,” and would also monitor the situation. Hoffman did not return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment Friday.
Deen, a Georgia native, had already ostracized some of her fan base a little over a year ago when she admitted she had been living with diabetes for at least three years. The celebrity chef tried to distance herself from this latest controversy as soon as she admitted to uttering racial slurs. “But that’s just not a word that we use as time has gone on,” her testimony reads. Her corporate entity, Paula Deen Enterprises, released a similar statement this week: “She was born 60 years ago when America’s South had schools that were segregated, different bathrooms, different restaurants and Americans rode in different parts of the bus. This is not today.” Paula’s website, meanwhile, says she remains as “genuine” as she was when she launched her first catering business, The Bag Lady.
The star’s appetite to tackle the PR nightmare head-on seemed to wane today when she failed to show up for a Today show appearance. Host Matt Lauer said Deen was “a no-show” while on-air. Later Friday she released an apology video on YouTube. ”I want to learn and grow from this,” she says. “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.”
Meanwhile, backlash simmered on Twitter as people aired imaginative names for supposed Dee recipes, including “back-of-the-bus biscuits” and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot cake.” A second rash of tweets, labeled “PaulaDeenApologyBingo,” suggested Deen will make her situation worse with a tone-deaf apology.
Plenty of high-profile celebrities have swamped their careers with racial slurs. But few have offered explanations akin to Deen’s, which boils down to noting that “racism was just part of the world I grew up in.” She is right about that—and her diehard fans may value the frankness—but many contemporary executives don’t want any part of that world. Unless its battered and fried, of course.
