Monday, 24 June 2013
Paula Deen Loses Major Endorsement Deal
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Paula Deen lose Major
Endorsement Deal
ATLANTA —
Paula Deen’s plight intensify on Monday as she tousled to cope with allegation
that she and people in her restaurants have been insensitive or worse to
blacks, women and other groups.
John M.
Heller/Getty Images
Paula Deen in 2010. Smithfield Foods, whose hams and other
products Ms. Deen has endorsed since 2006, severed its relationship with her
Monday. The world’s largest pork producer has been the flagship in her
collection of at least 17 licensing and endorsement partnerships.
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Smithfield
Foods, whose hams and other products Ms. Deen has formal 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 evidence that she has used national 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 spokesperson 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 mostly 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 panicky 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 legal representative 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 running 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 in a different
place,” he said.
The
environment at Mr. Hiers’s restaurant appears to be a problem but “she condones
it as 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 unkind 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 manager and restaurateur. “That’s what we sell here in
Albany.”
Alan
Blinder contributed coverage.
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