Paula Deen fired from Food Network for racist comments

[jimmy olsen]

Caliga weeps for the culinary delights that have been lost! 

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/paula-deen-issues-video-apology-racial-slur-article-1.1379262

Paula Deen fired from Food Network after admitting to using racial slur
Just after canceling an appearance on 'Today,' the celebrity chef and Food Network star issued a formal video statement to make amends for her use of the N-word. Alas, her home channel still gave her the boot.

By Margaret Eby AND Don Kaplan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Stick a fork in this butterball — she's been deep fried and deep-sixed by the Food Network.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen, 66, was canned by the cable channel on Friday after releasing a groveling video apology on YouTube for using the N-word and cracking racist jokes at her Savannah, Ga., restaurant.

"I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong I have done. I want to learn and grow from this," she said in the 45-second video posted on YouTube. "Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable."

But the ham-handed apology was not enough to save her job with the Food Network.

Friday, officials at the channel, where Deen rose to fame with her brand of butter and deep-fried fueled down-home Southern cooking, said they would not renew her contract, which expires at the end of the month.

Between her TV work, speaking engagements, cookbooks, licensing and endorsements, Forbes estimates her wealth at $17 million. Network sources said she was paid between $10,000 and $20,000 for each episode of her various shows.

Deen's callous language ballooned into a humiliating scandal earlier in the week, when the star admitted in a deposition for a $1.2 million discrimination trial that she had "of course" used the N-word in the past.

In her deposition she also said: "It's just what they are — they're jokes ... most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks ... gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don't know — I just don't know what to say," Deen reportedly said in her defense. "I can't, myself, determine what offends another person."

The pork-and-butter loving Deen, 66, and her brother Bubba Hiers are being sued by former employee Lisa Jackson, who alleged sexual harassment and a hostile work environment at Deen and Hiers' restaurant, Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House.

Hoping to quell the controversy on Thursday, Deen's reps said her use of the word was the product of her upbringing in the deep South.

Word that Deen had been canned came on the same day that Deen backed out of a scheduled appearance on the "Today" show about the controversy."

"I have to say I was physically not able this morning," Deen said on another video. "The pain has been tremendous."

"I want people to understand that my family and I are not the kind of people that the press is trying to say we are,"" she said.

[The Brain]

Is James her son?

[Syt]

Looks like that lady mask Arnold wears in Total Recall.

[Ideologue]

Is James her son?

[Caliga]

Looks like that lady mask Arnold wears in Total Recall.

Ha, I never noticed that.

"My restaurants will be closed for two weeks.  Two weeks.  Two weeks.  Two weeks...."

[MadImmortalMan]

From the audio of her apology, you'd think she killed somebody or something.

[Admiral Yi]

From the audio of her apology, you'd think she killed somebody or something.

She has to really sell it if she wants back on air.

CNN phone interviewed a black preacher who is backing her.  Dude did not really help her cause that much.  "Everybody says that word.  You can use the word as an insult or not."  I'm sure she appreciates him trying, but should probably tell him to shut up.

[Barrister]

She'll get another tv deal someplace after an appropriate amount of time has passed.

[lustindarkness]

I read the title of this thread as: "Paula Deen fried by Food Network for racist comments"

[crazy canuck]

The thing that strikes me about this is from what I have read this became public through the release of her answers to questions in a Deposition in a law suit.  In Canada answers given in our equivalent (called an examination for discovery) are strictly confidential and can only be used for the purposes of the litigation.  It would be a contempt of Court for a party to use the transcript in this way.

[Eddie Teach]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fbFXl9-t90

I'd have preferred a normal video from Rocketboom, but it's topical.

[Barrister]

The thing that strikes me about this is from what I have read this became public through the release of her answers to questions in a Deposition in a law suit.  In Canada answers given in our equivalent (called an examination for discovery) are strictly confidential and can only be used for the purposes of the litigation.  It would be a contempt of Court for a party to use the transcript in this way.

But that only applies to the parties involved.  If the transcript leaks out third parties can't generally be sanctioned.

[Admiral Yi]

But that only applies to the parties involved.  If the transcript leaks out third parties can't generally be sanctioned.

What sorts of third parties are privy to a deposition?

[DGuller]

I don't know if it's political correctness run amok, but in any case, it's good when bad things happen to people who teach people to cook so atrociously.  She's probably responsible for the premature deaths of billions of pounds worth of people.

[crazy canuck]

The thing that strikes me about this is from what I have read this became public through the release of her answers to questions in a Deposition in a law suit.  In Canada answers given in our equivalent (called an examination for discovery) are strictly confidential and can only be used for the purposes of the litigation.  It would be a contempt of Court for a party to use the transcript in this way.

But that only applies to the parties involved.  If the transcript leaks out third parties can't generally be sanctioned.

If it "leaks" out there is only one source for that occuring.