Photo by TMZ
Everyone knows the celebrity chef and cooking maven, Paula Deen! However, I don’t think anyone could have ever guessed she was such a racist! In a videotaped court deposition on May 17th, Paula admitted to using the N-word and telling insensitive racial jokes. Many believe that her behavior could mark the collapse of her entire empire.
A $1.2million 2012 lawsuit has opened a can of worms for Paula. In the lawsuit, a former General Manager of Paula Deen’s Savannah, Georgia, restaurant, Lisa Jackson, claimed use of the N-word by Paula and sexual harassment and infliction of distress and assault by her brother Bubba Hiers. When asked by Lisa’s Atlanta-based attorney if she’d ever used the N-word, Paula responded, “Yes, of course,” and gave examples of times she used the offensive term. In terms of telling racist jokes, Paula said, “It’s just what they are — they’re jokes…most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks…I can’t determine what offends another person.”
When asked about her desire to have black men play slaves at one of her wedding engagements she explained she got the idea from a restaurant she and her husband had previously dined. Paula said of the restaurant experience, “The whole entire waiter staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie. I mean, it was really impressive. That restaurant represented a certain era in America…after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War…It was not only black men, it was black women…I would say they were slaves.”
