newsmakers

newsmakers

Food Network won’t renew Deen’s contract

SAVANNAH, Ga.

The Food Network said Friday it’s dumping Paula Deen, barely an hour after the celebrity cook posted the first of two videotaped apologies online begging forgiveness from fans and critics troubled by her admission to having used racial slurs in the past.

The 66-year-old kitchen celebrity has been swamped in controversy since court documents filed this week revealed Deen told an attorney questioning her under oath last month that she has used the N-word. “Yes, of course,” Deen said, though she added, “It’s been a very long time.”

The Food Network, which made Deen a star with “Paula’s Home Cooking” in 2002, weighed in with a terse statement Friday afternoon.

“Food Network will not renew Paula Deen’s contract when it expires at the end of this month,” the statement said. Network representatives declined to comment further. A representative for Deen did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking a comment on the decision.

The news came as Deen worked to repair the damage to her image, which has spawned a vast empire of cookbooks, a bimonthly cooking magazine, a full line of cookware, food items such as spices and even furniture.

She abruptly canceled a scheduled interview on NBC’s “Today” show Friday, instead opting for a direct appeal via online video.

“Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable,” Deen said in the first 45-second video posted on YouTube. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I beg you, my children, my team, my fans, my partners — I beg for your forgiveness.”

Deen adopted a solemn tone as she looked straight into the camera. Still, her recorded apology featured three obvious edits — with the picture quickly fading out between splices — during a statement just five sentences long.

It soon was scrapped and replaced with a second video of Deen talking unedited for nearly two minutes as she insists: “Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter to me.

“I want people to understand that my family and I are not the kind of people that the press is wanting to say we are,” Deen says in the later video. “The pain has been tremendous that I have caused to myself and to others.”

Associated Press