14 DAY TRIAL // Celebrity chef Paula Deen is the cover girl of this week’s issue of People magazine, while also being featured in an interview on her very troubled year, how her career almost came to an end, and her comeback, for which she’s preparing right now.
Still, it seems that she can’t stay out of trouble no matter what she does. The saying that you’re doomed if you do and doomed if you don’t certainly seems to apply to her.
Just as she’s trying to distance herself from the racist controversy that nearly drove her business empire into the ground, Paula is again getting people talking about it. And it’s all due to a remark she made in the interview that was supposed to mark her comeback.
“I feel like ‘embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always follow my name. It’s like that black football player who recently came out,” Paula told People. She’s referring to Michael Sam, who just came out or perhaps Jason Collins, who just signed with The Brooklyn Nets this week, after coming out and thus became the first openly gay NBA player.
However, Paula doesn’t know either by name, so she just refers to them as she best sees fit. She’s probably read about their coming out and she feels that there’s some similarity in their cases.
Twitterverse would beg to differ, with many people going online to draw a parallel between Paula’s comment, “that black football player,” and the remark that started the entire backlash against her, which saw her admit in a 2013 court testimony to have used the N-word many years back.
In other words, some believe, the very fact that Ms. Deen is referring to these two men by “that black football player” in the People interview would be some form of confirmation that she’s racist.
“He said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying. I’m fighting to get my name back,” Deen also said.
TMZ notes that, by saying these things, Paula is basically “compar[ing] her use of a racial slur to someone being gay.” In return, the same media outlet writes, citing outraged messages online, either NFL star could refer to Deen by “that white, fat, redneck TV chef who used the n-word.”
So far, Paula Deen’s comeback hasn’t been going as she planned. She still has the $75 million (€54.6 million) cash infusion to get going in the business again but, as far as PR goes, things could stand some (read: a lot of) improvement.