Paula Deen Details Career Impact From 2013 N-Word Controversy

Paula Deen's career suffered a major setback in 2013 after she admitted during a legal deposition that she had used the N-word in the past, leading to the loss of Food Network deals and major endorsements. The controversy resurfaced with the release of the documentary "Canceled: The Paula Deen Story" at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where Deen and her attorney Bill Glass defended her admission, arguing that it was taken out of context and unrelated to the racial bias claims in the lawsuit filed by Lisa Jackson. Deen explained that her use of the slur was in reference to a traumatic 1987 armed robbery incident and was not used publicly or recently, while Glass criticized the deposition's line of questioning as irrelevant and strategically harmful. Despite Deen's defiance and desire to tell her "truth," her son Bobby expressed reservations about revisiting the controversy, feeling that the family had survived the ordeal and that public opinions were unlikely to change. The documentary reveals tensions within the family during the interview and highlights the ongoing impact of the scandal on Deen's public image. Overall, the film and interviews attempt to provide a fuller context to Deen's past actions and the subsequent fallout.