Paula Deen reveals embarrassing faux pas she made with vegan Ellen DeGeneres on her show

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Paula Deen shared a story about a time she accidentally gave Ellen DeGeneres the wrong gift.

Paula Deen, the 78-year-old celebrity chef, shared in her new documentary, *Canceled: The Paula Deen Story*, that she received a strange gift after appearing on *The Ellen DeGeneres Show*.

The former Food Network host, who recently addressed a controversial use of a racial slur in a difficult interview, gave Ellen DeGeneres – a dedicated vegan – a ham as a gift.

A clip from the documentary shows Ellen DeGeneres introducing Paula Deen as the ‘queen of Southern cooking’ as Deen walks onstage carrying a ham.

She told Ellen DeGeneres she’d brought her a ham as a gift, jokingly calling Ellen her ‘favorite ham.’ DeGeneres thanked her, and the woman remarked, ‘Isn’t that sweet?’

Deen playfully told DeGeneres, ‘He’s so heavy, now you’re the one who has to keep up with him!’ as she passed her the ham.

Deen recalled how DeGeneres ‘took it and laid it down, and didn’t say a word.’

‘Well, I found out later she was a vegetarian. She didn’t eat meat!’ Deen went on, adding, ‘I felt like a turd.’

After the documentary aired, a spokesperson for Ellen DeGeneres clarified to Entertainment Weekly that she follows a vegan diet, correcting Paula Deen’s statement that she was vegetarian.

Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show ended in 2022 following numerous accusations of a negative and harmful workplace culture.

Billy Corben’s documentary about Deen debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month.

The story traces her career, starting with a small catering business she launched from her kitchen with just $200.

The book also details her eleven years at the Food Network, a period that concluded in 2013 when she was terminated after confessing in court to having used a racial slur.

The testimony was given as part of a legal case brought by Lisa Jackson, a former employee at Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House, a restaurant owned by Paula Deen. Jackson claimed that Bubba Hiers, Deen’s brother and the restaurant’s manager, harassed her sexually and used offensive racial slurs.

Even though the lawsuit was eventually settled and dropped, the resulting scandal caused Paula Deen to lose many of her business partnerships and significantly harmed her career.

Deen struck a defiant tone as she looked back on her N-word controversy in a recent interview.

Earlier this month, Paula Deen spoke with The Hollywood Reporter alongside her sons and business partners, Bobby and Jamie Deen. She stated that a lawsuit deposition, where she acknowledged using a racial slur in the past, led to a significant loss of everything she had built.

The interview, which sparked debate due to apparent tension with her sons, happened right after her documentary was released.

During the conversation, Deen was quizzed on the lawsuit and her past use of the N-word.

Oh my gosh, you won’t BELIEVE what Bobby Deen said! He was talking about the documentary, and it’s just… so him. He said he was ‘excited’ for it to finally come out, which, okay, good for him, supporting his mom. But then he dropped this bomb – he ‘thought it was a terrible idea from the beginning!’ Can you even imagine? He’s so conflicted, and I’m completely obsessed with every little detail of this whole thing!

He said it felt like a long time had gone by, and he didn’t want to revisit the past. “We got through it,” he explained, “and that’s what mattered – we survived as a family.”

He believes people who already dislike or admire his mother probably won’t change their opinions after seeing the film.

But Deen objected, saying that the fallout from the lawsuit ‘ate at my gut every day.’

Honestly, I think things would have been so much smoother if we’d just gotten the complete truth from the start. That’s really what I believe. It’s frustrating, because I’ve heard things about Jackson’s honesty, and frankly, it’s led me to believe he hasn’t always been truthful.

Honestly, it frustrated me to no end that people immediately accepted what she said without questioning it. No one bothered to look into things for themselves, and it really bothered me. I just knew I needed to share my side of the story and set the record straight; I couldn’t rest until the truth was out there.

Bobby warned that trying the case again in the documentary carried significant risks, and Deen responded by saying she’d already suffered the worst possible consequences.

‘I disagree with that,’ Bobby replied.

“Mom, please don’t say that,” he said, surprisingly honest. “We still have each other, and we’re all safe. We haven’t lost everything by any means.”

Bobby continued, recalling that it was 2013, quite a while back. He said their business had not only lasted through all the years since, but had actually flourished. He added that they had wonderful families and hadn’t lost everything – in fact, they were doing very well.

Deen didn’t give up, explaining that she lost business deals with Food Network, Walmart, and Target all within a single day. She said, ‘It was everyone,’ meaning all of her partnerships were affected.

Deen added that it was ‘heart-wrenching’ because ‘these people knew me.’

Deen said she felt pressured to issue an apology she later wished she hadn’t, but her son Jamie explained that no one actually forced her to apologize the way she did.

She even claimed that she ‘didn’t know what [she] was supposed to be apologizing for.’

Okay, so she tried to explain when she said *that* word, and it was… messy. She said they hadn’t used it in ages, but then launched into this story about her dad. Apparently, when she was a teenager, he sat her down and basically said he *never* wanted to hear her being unkind to anyone. Like, that’s how she was brought up! It felt… weird, honestly, trying to connect that to *that* word. I’ve replayed it in my head a million times, trying to understand, but it just feels… complicated. I just want to defend her, I really do, but it’s hard.

The story initially implied Paula Deen hadn’t used a racial slur since her youth. However, during a legal testimony, she confessed to using the slur as late as the 1980s, recalling an incident where she told her husband about a supposed bank robbery committed by a Black man.

As for regrets, Deen didn’t say that she regretted having ever used the N-word multiple times.

She regretted not having a lawyer who would have strongly protested when the topic came up during her deposition.

Looking back, I really wish I’d just settled that lawsuit initially. Letting things drag on and escalate to that awful deposition was a huge mistake. It caused so much unnecessary stress and damage – a lesson learned for sure. Sometimes, the quickest, most peaceful resolution is the best one, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

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2025-09-23 02:35