Getting diagnosed by Donahue, a diabetes debacle, and words powerful enough to end a career. Though her reputation rightfully took a hit based on her past behavior, Paula Deen has still dealt with her share of tragedy in life.
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00:00Getting diagnosed by Donahue, a diabetes debacle, and words powerful enough to end a career.
00:06Though her reputation rightfully took a hit based on her past behavior, Paula Deen has
00:10still dealt with her share of tragedy in life.
00:14Paula Deen married her first husband, James Jimmy Deen, in 1965, when she was just 18
00:19years old. She soon became the mother of two sons, Jamie and Bobby. Her married life, however,
00:24was far from ideal due to her husband's alcohol consumption. As she wrote in her memoir, Paula
00:29Deen, it ain't all about the cookin'. The drinking changed him. When he drank, he became
00:33dumb as a rock, and I couldn't depend on him.
00:36His drinking drove a wedge between them, and between the verbal put-downs he hurled at
00:40her, their rift grew increasingly larger as the years passed. After nearly 30 years of
00:45marriage, they separated in 1992 and subsequently divorced. There was, however, one final indignity
00:51she was forced to endure before ending the marriage, with Deen writing,
00:54But even when I filed for divorce, he never left the house. I was the one who had to leave."
01:00Paula Deen was only 19 years old when she lost her father in a horrific car wreck. He
01:04previously had a risky surgery to fix a heart problem, but sadly developed a fatal blood
01:10clot that caused him to crash his car. As Deen recalled in her memoir, she was beyond
01:14crushed to lose her father, writing,
01:16"...I simply tore apart. How would I ever live with this devastation? How would I ever fill
01:21the hole in my heart that Daddy's death dug?"
01:23Just four years later, Deen was forced to experience another family trauma when her
01:27mother was diagnosed with bone cancer, and she later passed at the age of 44. Interviewed
01:32by Fox News, Deen was convinced that it was the loss of her father that was really to
01:36blame for her mother's death, saying,
01:38"...I say my mother died from heartbreak. She was a very quiet, reserved lady, and I
01:42said her pain had to come out somewhere because the cancer that she died from is not genetic."
01:48Losing both of her parents within a few years of each other left Paula Deen so emotionally
01:52ravaged that her mental health began to deteriorate. She was so distraught by her father's death
01:58that the only way she could fall asleep that night was if she lay in between her husband
02:02and her mother.
02:03"...It started that day. I just didn't know it."
02:07As Deen told Entertainment Tonight, she developed a crippling terror of death that manifested
02:12itself in fear of leaving her house, transforming her life into an anxiety-ridden prison-like
02:17existence, saying,
02:18"...I was a basket case. I became so frightened of death. I would have panic attacks and my
02:23arms would go numb and you feel like you're having a heart attack."
02:26She also revealed that she kept a brown paper bag handy in case she needed to breathe into
02:30it to calm herself down. She didn't come to understand she was agoraphobic until the day
02:35she saw TV host Phil Donahue discussing the disorder in an episode of his talk show. She
02:40was then able to take the first steps toward conquering her fears and overcoming agoraphobia.
02:46While there's no debating that Paula Deen's Southern-inspired cuisine is mouthwateringly
02:50delicious, it's also loaded with unhealthy fat. In fact, HuffPost once added up all the
02:55butter used to make a Deen-style Thanksgiving dinner and revealed her meal required more
03:00than nine sticks of the stuff. That's why there were mixed reactions amongst the public
03:05when she announced she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
03:08Deen transformed that particular lemon into lemonade by becoming a spokesperson for Novo
03:13Nordisk, the manufacturer of a diabetes drug. When Deen confirmed she had been diagnosed
03:18a few years earlier, she was widely criticized for continuing to whip up her fatty fare on
03:22the Food Network, knowing the health risks involved. The most vocal of those critics
03:27was late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. As Bourdain told TV Guide,
03:31"...I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it's okay to eat
03:34food that is killing us."
03:36Deen explained why she hadn't gone public sooner than she did in an interview with USA
03:41Today, saying,
03:42"...I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest.
03:45I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn't armed
03:49with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time, it would be in God's time."
03:54Unfortunately for Paula Deen, more than a few of the negative situations in her life
03:58were brought on by her own behavior, with no one to blame but herself. By 2012, Paula
04:04Deen had parlayed her Food Network fame into an empire that raked in $17 million that year
04:10That same year, she was hit with a lawsuit from Lisa Jackson, who worked at a restaurant
04:14co-owned by Deen and her brother, Bubba Hyres. Jackson, the restaurant's former general manager,
04:20claimed she was subjected to continual sexism and racism, alleging Hyres openly watched
04:25adult videos in the workplace, and that both siblings repeatedly used the N-word. Deen
04:29fired back by alleging that Jackson had attempted to extort her for more than $1 million. Deen
04:35eventually reached a settlement with her former employee the following year, and the suit
04:39was dismissed.
04:40Weeks after the lawsuit was filed, however, all hell broke loose when the National Enquirer
04:44obtained Deen's deposition for the case. Asked to confirm Jackson's claim that she had used
04:49the N-word, Deen offered a startling confession by saying, quote, "'Yes, of course.'" Asked
04:54if she had used the word since then, she said,
04:56"'I'm sure I have, but it's been a very long time.'"
05:00Deen's use of the N-word wasn't the only example of jaw-dropping racism to emerge from the
05:04lawsuit and her deposition for it. As reported by Radar Online, Deen was hit with backlash
05:09over another section of the suit, with former employee Lisa Jackson recalling a time that
05:13Deen brainstormed ideas for a plantation-style reception she was throwing for the wedding
05:18of her brother, Bubba Hyres. According to Jackson's account, Deen said,
05:22"'Well, what I would really like is a bunch of little N-words to wear long-sleeve white
05:26shirts, black shorts, and black bow ties. You know, in the Shirley Temple days, they
05:30used to tap dance around. But we can't do that because the media would be on me about
05:35that.'"
05:36In her deposition, Deen disputed Jackson's recollection that she desired to celebrate
05:39her brother's nuptials by emulating a pre-Emancipation Proclamation Southern plantation. She did,
05:45however, admit to using the phrase, "'really Southern plantation wedding' when pitching
05:49her idea. Her intent, she explained, was to imitate a restaurant she had recently visited,
05:54where all the waitstaff were older black men attired in white evening jackets. As she said,
05:59quote, "'That restaurant represented a certain era in America, one that she wanted to recreate.'"
06:05Paula Deen's admission instantly transformed her from beloved TV personality to toxic pariah.
06:11Shortly after the National Enquirer's report, the Food Network canceled her show and cut
06:15all ties with her. Deen's company issued a statement to TMZ, reading,
06:19"'Deen was born 60 years ago when America's South had schools that were segregated, different
06:24bathrooms, different restaurants, and Americans rode in different parts of the buzz.' The
06:28tone-deaf statement was ripped to shreds for attempting to excuse her behavior because
06:32she was a white person from the South of a certain age."
06:34Deen quickly booked an appearance on the Today show to do some damage control, but backed
06:39out at the last minute. Instead, she issued a video on YouTube, literally begging forgiveness.
06:44"'My team, my fans, my partners, I beg for your forgiveness.'"
06:51She posted another video blaming the media for characterizing her as a racist, declaring,
06:55"'I want people to understand that my family and I are not the kind of people that the
06:59press is wanting to say we are.'"
07:02When her statement and two apology videos fell flat in the court of public opinion,
07:07Paula Deen re-examined the offer to appear on Today. That led her to sit down on live
07:11television with anchor Matt Lauer, who would eventually find himself neck-deep in an even
07:15bigger scandal than Deen's. Once again, Deen's attempt at redemption imploded when she attempted
07:20to paint herself as the victim.
07:22"'There's been some very, very hurtful lies said about me.'"
07:27She insisted the only time she had ever used the N-word was a time she had a gun held to
07:32her head as a bank teller, and bizarrely criticized young Black people for their casual use of
07:37the word. Then she contradicted what she said in her sworn deposition when she claimed that
07:41the 1986 incident was the sole occasion, quote, "'in all of my 66 years on Earth had I ever
07:47used it.'"
07:48Ultimately, Deen's interview did nothing to move the needle, commenting on the sit-down
07:52On Today, anchor Savannah Guthrie offered a pretty fair assessment when she stated,
07:56"'People probably went in with an opinion and left the interview with the same opinion.'"
08:02Paula Deen's multiple attempts to mitigate the damage from her racism scandal had little
08:06impact. While the Food Network may have been the first corporate entity to sever ties with
08:10her, it was by no means the last. Within a matter of days, all the deals that Deen had
08:14spent a decade putting together vanished.
08:17Companies to distance themselves from Deen included Walmart, Smithfield Foods, Caesars,
08:22Entertainment, and Target. Meanwhile, her lucrative partnership with the QVC home shopping
08:27channel also went bust. Even pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk fired her from her spokesperson
08:32gig. While Random House canceled an upcoming book, it was slated to publish. As Forbes
08:37wealth reporter Caleb Melby told ABC News, the die had been cast when Food Network pulled
08:42the plug, explaining,
08:43"...to see somebody who has been so closely aligned to her — they both grew famous and
08:47wealthy together — drop her has created a domino effect."
08:52Paula Deen was still reeling from her scandal when someone close to her emerged with further
08:56allegations. That someone was Dora Charles, who worked with Deen at her restaurants for
09:00two decades, regarded as Deen's secret weapon when it came to Southern cuisine. Charles
09:05had helped Deen open her flagship Savannah restaurant, Lady & Sons, and assisted in developing
09:10the eatery's recipes.
09:12Deen's battered reputation took further hits when Charles gave a scorched-earth interview
09:16with The New York Times in 2013. Accusing Deen of using racist language, she revealed
09:21that Deen had once asked her to ring a bell outside the restaurant and yell for diners
09:25to, quote, "...come and get it." Charles refused, recalling,
09:28"...I said, I'm not ringing no bell. That's a symbol to me of what we used to do back
09:32in the day."
09:33As if it wasn't enough of a blow, Charles also recalled when Deen asked another Black
09:37employee to dress up like Aunt Jemima for a pancake-making demonstration. Charles also
09:42recounted the promise Deen made to her early on in their working relationship.
09:46"...If I get rich, you get rich."
09:51Deen did indeed get rich, very rich. Meanwhile, Charles still earned $6.50 an hour. Deen responded
09:59with a statement characterizing Charles as greedy, stating,
10:02"...fundamentally, Dora's complaint is not about race, but about money."
10:06Paula Deen's brother, Bubba Hires, had been involved in many of the allegations brought
10:10forth in the lawsuit that destroyed her career and her reputation. Hires had begun working
10:15with his sister in 2000, and was an integral part of developing and building her successful
10:19restaurant endeavors. Hires wrote in the introduction to his cookbook, Uncle Bubba's Savannah Seafood,
10:25"...without Paula's support, sensible advice, and unconditional love, I'd probably be a
10:29lost soul."
10:30In 2019, Hires died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 65. In 2014, his namesake restaurant,
10:37Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, was forced to shut its doors after Paula's scandal. In a
10:41statement to USA Today about her brother, Deen wrote,
10:44"...Bubba was the greatest brother who was loved by so many people. We will miss him
10:48dearly."