SOB STORY: Teary chef Paula Deen, on the “Today” show yesterday, now claims she used a racial slur only once. (
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A blubbering Paula Deen denied being a racist during a national-television interview yesterday — and then chastised her young employees for dropping the N-word like she once did.
The celebrity chef dissolved into tears on NBC’s “Today” show, insisting she’s not a bigot despite admitting under oath in a deposition that she’s used the racial slur.
First, she tried to invoke Biblical verse to explain.
“If there’s anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back, if you’re out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please I want to meet you.”
She added, “I is what I is, and I’m not changing.”
Deen then tried to point the finger at her workers.
“It’s very distressing for me to go into my kitchens and hear what these young people are calling each other,” she said in her first TV interview since scandal broke. “I think for this problem to be worked on, that these young people are gonna have to take control and start showing respect for each other.”
Host Matt Lauer asked Deen if she understood that the N-word is one of the language’s most vile slurs.
“I don’t know, I have asked myself that so many times,” Deen replied. “It’s important to me that I tell you and everyone out there what I believe and how I live my life. I believe that every creature on this earth, every one of God’s creatures, was created equal.”
“No matter who you choose to go to bed at night with. No matter what church you go to pray. I believe that everyone should be treated equal.”
Deen, 66, admitted in a May 17 lawsuit deposition that she has used the N-word — once specifically referring to a man who held her at gunpoint during a 1986 bank robbery.
“The day I used that word, it was a world ago — it was 30 years ago — I had had a gun put to my head,” Deen said.
In her deposition, Deen admitted to using racial slurs in other cases. But she changed her story during “Today,” saying she only used the word once.
“Never . . . It’s just not a part of who we are.”
On Friday, the Food Network canned Deen, and she lost a lucrative deal shilling for Smithfield Foods.
“Would I have fired me? Knowing me? No,” Deen said.
Walmart yesterday said it would drop Deen’s food line, and Caesars entertainment said it would re-brand her restaurants they operate.