{"id":18387,"date":"2013-06-20T10:39:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T14:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18387"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:21:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:21:21","slug":"paula-deen-on-her-dream-southern-plantation-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/06\/paula-deen-on-her-dream-southern-plantation-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Deen On Her Dream \u2018Southern Plantation Wedding\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paula<\/a><\/p>\n

by<\/span>\u00a0HUNTER WALKER<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, Food Network chef Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition as part of a discrimination suit she\u2019s facing in which she discussed her desire to have a \u201cvery southern style wedding\u201d for her brother modeled after a restaurant where the \u201cwhole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men\u201d clad in white jackets and black bow ties, according to a transcript of the deposition filed in federal court in Georgia. Deen also admitted to having used the N word and discussed the ways the word could be \u201cnot said in a mean way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Deen\u2019s deposition in the lawsuit was<\/span>\u00a0first reported by the National Enquirer<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

A copy of the deposition transcript is published below.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deen, her brother Earl \u201cBubba\u201d Hiers, her company, and the corporations that operate a pair of restaurants she owns in Savannah, Ga., are being sued by former employee Lisa Jackson. A complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia by Jackson\u2019s attorney, Matthew Billips, last November alleged she was subjected to \u201cviolent, sexist, and racist behavior\u201d during five years working for Deen\u2019s various businesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the complaint, Jackson began working for Uncle Bubba\u2019s Oyster House, a restaurant run by Hiers, in early 2005 and left in August 2010 due to the inappropriate behavior she said she was subjected to in her time there. In the deposition, Deen said she owns half of the corporation that operates Uncle Bubba\u2019s Oyster House. Jackson also said she did some other work for Deen\u2019s company and a restaurant she runs. The complaint alleged \u201cracially discriminatory attitudes pervade\u201d Uncle Bubba\u2019s Oyster House where Jackson claimed African-American employees were required to use separate bathrooms and entrances from white staffers. Jackson also said African-Americans were held to \u201cdifferent, more stringent, standards\u201d than whites at the restaurant and that Hiers regularly made offensive racial remarks. In the complaint, Jackson is described as a \u201cwhite female.\u201d However the complaint noted she has biracial nieces, so \u201cderogatory remarks regarding African Americans are even more personally offensive to Ms. Jackson than they would be to another white citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with the allegations of racism, Jackson\u2019s complaint accuses Hiers of making inappropriate sexual comments and forcing her to look at pornography with him. The complaint also said Hiers violently shook employees on multiple occasions and came to work in an \u201calmost constant state of intoxication.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s complaint also accuses Deen of racism and enabling Hiers\u2019 behavior. According to the complaint, Deen and other managers at her companies ignored Jackson\u2019s attempts to discuss Hiers\u2019 behavior. As evidence that Deen \u201cholds such racist views herself,\u201d the complaint details an incident that occurred when Jackson was in charge of \u201cfood and serving arrangements\u201d at Hier\u2019s wedding in 2007. The complaint includes a comment Deen allegedly made when asked by Jackson what type of uniforms the servers should wear at the wedding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,\u201d the lawsuit claims Deen said. \u201cNow that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn\u2019t it? But we can\u2019t do that because the media would be on me about that.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In her deposition, which was given last month, Deen denied many of the allegations against Hiers and addressed the alleged comment about his wedding. Deen said she remembered telling Jackson and another employee about a restaurant she went to with an exclusively African-American waitstaff that she wanted to emulate, but was worried about the potential reaction. Though Deen admitted to using the phrase \u201creally southern plantation wedding\u201d she denied having said the N word.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI remember telling them about a restaurant that my husband and I had recently visited. And I\u2019m wanting to think it was in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere, and it was so impressive,\u201d Deen said. \u201cThe whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie. I mean, it was really impressive. And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that, I said, but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Deen said \u201cthat restaurant represented a certain era in America.\u201d When pressed by Billips, the plaintiff\u2019s lawyer, Deen said she was referring to the period immediately surrounding the Civil War. She also said she knew people might \u201cread something into it\u201d if she used exclusively African-American servers at the wedding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though she denied having used the N word when discussing the wedding waitstaff, Deen admitted to Billips that she used the term in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, of course,\u201d Deen replied when asked if she ever said the word.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deen said she employed the term when telling her husband about an incident \u201cwhen a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t feel real favorable towards him,\u201d Deen said of the alleged bank robber.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deen also admitted she was \u201csure\u201d that she\u2019d used the word since that incident. Specifically, Deen said she \u201cprobably\u201d used the word while \u201crepeating\u201d a \u201cconversation between blacks.\u201d She also said that her family, including Hiers, do not discriminate against any race and object to the N word \u201cbeing used in any cruel or mean behavior.\u201d Jackson\u2019s attorney responded by asking Deen to explain how the N word might be used in a \u201cnon-mean way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hear a lot of things in the kitchen, things that they \u2014 that black people will say to each other,\u201d Deen said. \u201cIf we are relaying something that was said, a problem that we\u2019re discussing, that\u2019s not said in a mean way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Billips also asked Deen whether she thought \u201cjokes\u201d containing the N word would be hurtful. Deen said she was unsure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of hard. Most \u2014 most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target \u2014 I don\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t make up the jokes, I don\u2019t know,\u201d said Deen. \u201cThey usually target, though, a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don\u2019t know \u2014 I just don\u2019t know what to say. I can\u2019t, myself, determine what offends another person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Though she said she does not tell \u201cracial\u201d jokes herself, Deen said she was \u201csure\u201d members of her family have told jokes that contained the N word and that her husband \u201cis constantly telling me jokes.\u201d Billips asked whether Deen is \u201coffended at all by those jokes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, because it\u2019s my husband,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to media reports, Ms. Deen does not condone or find the use of racial epithets acceptable,\u201d Deen\u2019s attorney, William Franklin, told the Associated Press in a statement. A spokeswoman for the Food Network<\/span>\u00a0issued a statement<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0saying it will \u201ccontinue to monitor the situation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Attorneys for Deen and Hiers did not respond to a request for comment from TPM. Billips declined to comment. In their filings in the lawuit, Deen and Hiers and the other defendants have denied Jackson\u2019s allegations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0HUNTER WALKER Last month, Food Network chef Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition as part of a discrimination suit she\u2019s facing in which she discussed..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,43,84,46,97],"tags":[357,345],"class_list":["post-18387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-media-culture","category-statements","category-tvfilm","category-us-news","tag-racism","tag-reactionary-watch"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/paula-deen-cropped-proto-custom_28.jpg?fit=652%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39548,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18387\/revisions\/39548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}