It’s been a dozen years since Paula Deen’s cooking empire crashed and burned. Now, the star is finally laying it all out on the table. She’s speaking openly about the scandal that rocked her world.
Her new documentary, Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, recently premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. In it, the self-proclaimed queen of Southern food talks about building her cozy Savannah, Georgia restaurant, The Lady and Sons, into a multi-million-dollar business. She lost it all when racism accusations hit hard. The biggest bombshell was her own confession under oath: she had used a racial slur.
"I want my soul back," says Deen, 78, early in the film. "Losing your reputation feels like losing your soul."
For a quick recap, here’s how things went down. In 2012, Lisa Jackson, a general manager at a restaurant Deen owned with her younger brother, Earl, known as Bubba, sued them. The lawsuit claimed racial and sexual discrimination. During a sworn statement in 2013, Deen was asked if she had ever used "the N-word." Her answer was clear: "Yes, of course." Deen also admitted to a conversation where she mentioned "all service staff were middle-aged Black men." She found their white jackets and black bow ties "really impressive."
Paula Deen Courtesy of TIFF
Food Network quickly announced it wouldn’t renew her contract. Her three TV shows were all canceled. Soon after, Deen lost endorsement deals with major companies like Walmart, Sears, QVC, and a pharmaceutical brand. The film points out that she became a public pariah, a frequent target for jokes on shows like Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and The Tonight Show.
Deen, along with her husband of 21 years, Michael Groover, and her sons, Bobby and Jamie, speak with raw emotion in the documentary. Still, none of her family attended the film’s world premiere. They also skipped the usual Q&A session after the screening. Director Billy Corben stepped up to handle that part alone.
Paula Deen Courtesy of TIFF
Canceled gives a lot of insight into the whole mess. Here’s a closer look at some key takeaways.
Paula Deen’s View: Extortion and a Hard Stance
Deen says her troubles began in January 2012. That’s when she got a letter from lawyers representing Lisa Jackson. The letter hinted that Deen’s name would be dragged through the mud due to Jackson’s knowledge of workplace issues. If Deen settled for $1.25 million, the lawsuit would vanish. If not, the damaging details would come out. Deen’s lawyers and loved ones urged her to pay, saying she could afford it. But Deen refused.
"A settlement is silliness," she states in the film. "Bubba and I agreed it wasn’t right to pay someone for something untrue. … I wanted to clear our name." The lawsuit moved forward. Deen’s brother, Bubba, later passed away in 2019 from pancreatic cancer.
The N-Word Confession Explained
In May 2013, Deen faced questioning, reportedly from a lawyer who usually handled medical malpractice cases. She answered "yes" when asked if she had ever used the N-word. In the documentary, she explains it happened in 1987. She was a bank teller in Georgia. A Black man walked in and robbed the bank, holding a gun to her head. Shaken, she went home to her then-husband, Jimmy Deen, and used the slur while reliving the event.
Legal experts in the film argue the question should never have been asked. They say it wasn’t relevant to the restaurant case. "Not once did the lawyer step in and say, ‘That’s not a legitimate question’," Deen points out. Interestingly, the convicted bank robber, Eugene Thomas King Jr., was found and interviewed by Inside Edition in 2013. He apologized to Deen for the harm he caused.
Pressure to Apologize Publicly
To calm the storm after her sworn statement went public, Deen flew to New York. She reluctantly hired a crisis management team, paying $50,000 each month. But she claims she got no benefit from them. The team ordered her to record an apology video, even though she didn’t want to.
"They told me I had to sit down and make an apology to the country," Deen says. "I said, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I sat in a deposition and told the truth.’ They came back, ‘Yes, you did do something wrong.’"
After the first video got a bad reaction, Deen was pushed to record a second one while still in shock. "They said, ‘That wasn’t sincere at all. Do it again.’" Her agent was supposed to approve the video before it went out, but that didn’t happen. On the very day the second video was released, she learned she was fired from Food Network.
A Word for Matt Lauer
While still desperately trying to control the damage, a distraught Deen was persuaded to do a live interview on the Today show with then-host Matt Lauer. "It was terrible," she recalls. One of her sons even calls Lauer’s questioning a "courtroom interrogation."
In the uncomfortable clip, Lauer presses her on the controversy. He repeatedly asks if she is racist. Deen tries to change the subject and defend herself. Four years after that disastrous interview, Lauer himself was fired for bad workplace behavior and became "canceled." Deen says that when she heard the news, she thought about reaching out to him, sending a note of sympathy. But she decided against it. "Some people," she notes, "deserve it."
Deen’s Push to Clear Her Name
If viewers are hoping for a new apology from Deen, they won’t find one. She stands firm that she simply told the truth under oath. "I could have lied," she says. "But I decided not to."
And that controversial comment? Deen states she never spoke improperly in any of her restaurants. She declares at the start of the film, "When they lay me down, I don’t want my tombstone to say, ‘Here lies the body of a racist.’" She also points out that Jackson’s lawsuit eventually settled without any money being awarded to Jackson. Jackson even wrote in a statement: "The Paula Deen I have known for more than 8 years is a compassionate, kind person and will never condone discrimination or racism of any type toward anyone." Still, the once-famous chef admits that "the damage was done."
To this day, Deen has not returned to Food Network. She also hasn’t gotten back any of the sponsorships she lost. In August, The Lady and Sons, the restaurant that started it all, closed its doors for good.
Canceled: The Paula Deen Story is still looking for a distributor and a release date.