Paula Deen, the southern cook and former Food Network star who became a pariah in 2013 after she admitted she had used a racial slur in the past, is not holding back about those who she believes wronged her more than a decade ago.
That includes former “Today” host Matt Lauer, who himself was taken down during the height of the MeToo movement.
During Deen’s headline-making ordeal, Lauer interviewed her on the morning show in a manner she characterized as aggressive and unfair.
“It was terrible. It was terrible,” Deen, 78, said in the new documentary “Canceled: The Paula Deen Story,” which premiered Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival.
When the topic turned to Lauer’s termination by NBC in 2017, Deen continued, “I wanted to send him a note when his troubles started… I was sympathetic to anybody who goes through that sort of pain.”
“But,” she added, “some people deserve it.”
Her husband Michael Groover, 69, piled on and compared Lauer, 67, to “the Gestapo.”
Deen, who lost an empire of TV shows and endorsement deals worth millions in the wake of her downfall, also addressed the one-way feud the late chef and personality Anthony Bourdain began with her.
“Anthony Bourdain did call me the most dangerous person in America,” she said.
Bourdain often criticized Deen’s high-calorie cooking.
“She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations and she’s proud of the fact that her food is f–king bad for you,” Bourdain said to TV Guide in 2011.
“If I were on at 7 at night… I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it’s OK to eat food that is killing us. Plus, her food sucks.”
Deen, who announced in 2012 that she had Type 2 Diabetes, defended her low-country recipes.
“I don’t know what he was off in those countries eatin’ — bat brains or something,” she said in the doc. “I’ll stick to my fried chicken.”
Deen added of the “Parts Unknown” host, who died by suicide in 2018: “God rest his soul. I felt like he didn’t like anybody. Not even himself. He started something with me, and I hadn’t even met him.”
“Canceled” recounts Deen’s national calamity after an employee of her Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, Lisa Jackson, sued her and her brother Earl “Bubba” Hiers for sexual harassment and racial discrimination.
In a deposition, the star was asked if she’d ever said the “N-word” before, to which Deen responded, “Yes, of course” and owned up to a private conversation with her ex-husband after being held at gunpoint in 1986.
A judge eventually dismissed the race claims, and the lawsuit was settled.
In the doc, Deen, her husband Michael and her sons Bobby and Jamie Deen assert that the allegations of racism, including those made by her former Lady and Sons restaurant cook Dora Charles, are untrue.
“My mom never would have said what Dora alleges in that video to our kitchen staff or anyone else,” Bobby Deen said.
For Paula Deen’s part, she sees the new documentary as a way to clear her name.
“I want my soul back,” Deen said in the film. “To lose your reputation is like losing your soul.”
“When they lay me down, I do not want on my tombstone: Here lies the body of a racist.”
