Last month, Southern chef and butter queen Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition to a lawyer representing a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. The former employee, Lisa Jackson, is suing Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, who own the restaurant for alleged sexual harassment, racism, and sexism.
As reported first by the National Enquirer, the transcript of the deposition (filed Monday in U.S. District Court) contains quite a few unflattering quotes from Deen, including that "Yes, of course" she's used the N-word.
To put it lightly, people weren't so amused, taking almost immediately to Twitter and hijacking the hashtag #PaulasBestDishes (the name of her show on the Food Network) to mock the TV host.
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You can read the entire transcript below. In it, Deen is asked: "Have you ever used the N-word yourself?" to which she responds, "Yes, of course." She goes on to try to explain that it's probably "been a very long time" since she last used it, though, the last time being in relation to when she was held at gunpoint by a black robber.
Deen also addressed the allegation by Jackson that she wanted to have a "very Southern-style wedding" for her brother, where all the servers were "middle-aged black men." Deen said she got the idea from a restaurant she and her husband visited in the South.
From the transcript: Well, it -- to me, of course I'm old, but I ain't that old. I didn't live back in those days, but I've seen the pictures, and the pictures that I've seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America." Okay. And I was in the South when I went to this restaurant. It was located in the South. Okay. What era in America are you referring to? Well, I don't know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War. Right. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people. Well, it was not only black men; it was black women. Sure. And before the Civil War -- before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right? Yes, I would say that they were slaves.
The incident gave way to a viral hashtag making fun of Deen and her show with people by submitting fake recipe names:
Though others were quick to point out the fine line between the joke Tweets and racism:
The full transcript:
Transcript of the Testimony of Paula Deen Date: May 17, 2013
