The New York Times
June 24, 2013
Paula Deen Loses Major Endorsement Deal
By KIM SEVERSON
ATLANTA — Paula Deen’s troubles intensified on Monday as she scrambled to cope with allegations that she and people in her restaurants have been insensitive or worse to blacks, women and other groups.
Smithfield Foods, whose hams and other products Ms. Deen has endorsed since 2006, severed its relationship with her Monday. Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, has been the flagship in Ms. Deen’s collection of at least 17 licensing and endorsement partnerships.
At issue is Ms. Deen’s admission in a court deposition that she has used racial slurs and jokes that denigrate blacks.
“Smithfield condemns the use of offensive and discriminatory language and behavior of any kind,” Keira Lombardo, a Smithfield spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday. “Smithfield is determined to be an ethical food industry leader and it is important that our values and those of our spokespeople are properly aligned."
Smithfield announced a deal last month in which the Virginia-based food company would be sold to a Chinese pork producer for $4.72 billion.
Ms. Deen’s empire began to crumble last week after her deposition in a discrimination lawsuit was leaked to the news media. By Friday, the Food Network announced it was terminating her contract and immediately pulled her two shows from the network.
At the center of the lawsuit is Lisa T. Jackson, who for several years considered herself Mrs. Deen’s right hand, helping manage her restaurants and becoming close to the Deen inner circle.
Ms. Jackson filed the suit in March 2012, after she spent six months trying to turn around Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah, Ga., which is largely run by Ms. Deen’s brother, Earl W. Hiers, who is known as Bubba. Ms. Deen also operates The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah with her sons, Jamie and Bobby.
At Uncle Bubba’s, the federal lawsuit contends, racial slurs and jokes about women, Jews and blacks were common. Workers were intimidated and pornography was left on computers in the kitchen.
Ms. Deen and her brother have long contended that Ms. Jackson was bent on revenge. Before she filed the suit, she asked for $1.2 million, Ms. Deen’s lawyers have said, and threatened to take the matter public if she was not paid.
Late Friday, a lawyer for Mr. Hiers filed a motion in the case arguing that Ms. Jackson was pursuing race-based claims even though she is white and thus had no standing.
Ms. Jackson has since moved to Atlanta, where she began managing restaurants. She anxiously watched the story unfold over the weekend with friends.
“It’s sad and it’s hurtful,” she said in a brief interview on Monday. “At least the truth is going to come out now.”
Also on Monday, a person in New York who works closely with Ms. Deen’s media operations said the TV cook went into the problematic deposition in May ill prepared. She was convinced the case would be dismissed because of the earlier demand for money and thus spoke in her usual forthcoming and folksy style, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared losing her job.
Meanwhile, other investigators are looking into Ms. Deen’s restaurants. Robert Patillo, an Atlanta employment and labor lawyer who volunteers for Rainbow/PUSH, the civil rights group founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, spent the weekend in Savannah interviewing three former and current employees.
Mr. Patillo, who plans to head back to Savannah with a larger team of investigators this week, said the workers claimed white employees were routinely paid more than black employees, and that a black man who had threatened to go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Mr. Hiers pushed him and said, “You don’t have any civil rights here.”
Because Ms. Deen pays her kitchen staff more than comparable area restaurants and has a lot of influence in the city, many who work for her are reluctant to complain, Mr. Patillo said.
“Most of them fear that if they come out and make these statements, not only will they lose their job with Paula Deen, they won’t be able to get work elsewhere,” he said.
The environment at Mr. Hiers’s restaurant appears to be a problem but “she condones it because she doesn’t discipline her brother,” Mr. Patillo said.
Ms. Deen did not respond to requests for interviews, but she has said publicly that she will appear Wednesday on the “Today” show. She abruptly canceled an appearance last Friday. Later that day, she released a video apology to Matt Lauer and issued another, broader video apology in which she said hurtful language is inappropriate.
Still, Ms. Deen has plenty of fans left. In her hometown, Albany, Ga., a city of about 78,000, plans remain under way for a Paula Deen museum scheduled to open later this year.
“We stand behind what Paula represents, and that’s Southern hospitality,” said Billie Jo Fletcher, a museum organizer and restaurateur. “That’s what we sell here in Albany.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/us/paula-deen-loses-major-endorsement-deal.html?_r=0
