\Paula Deen has revealed how she allegedly received and missed a phone call from Oprah Winfrey around 2013, when the former Food Network star admitted in a legal deposition to using the N-word in 1987.
The celebrity chef spoke on the matter at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend, which saw the world premiere of Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, the Billy Corben documentary film about the scandal that essentially ended Deen’s career.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Sunday (September 7), Deen was asked if she still keeps in touch with Winfrey. Throughout the early 2000s, Deen was a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, several clips of which are shown in the documentary.
“That’s interesting that you ask that,” Deen told the outlet. “I was out in the yard one day, walking around the yard, and I came back in, and I’d gotten a call from Oprah. I tried to call her back, but she didn’t answer. I will never know what she was gonna say to me.”
While Deen couldn’t recall the exact date of the call, she said it was “right after everything went away” for her, which places it around 2013, when she confessed to using the racial slur.
In 2013, Deen was sued by a former restaurant employee for racial and sexual discrimination. During the deposition, Deen admitted to using the “N-word” at times, including in a 1987 private conversation with her husband about a Black man pointing a gun at her head during a bank robbery.
Even though the suit was ultimately dismissed, Deen saw many of her cookery programs, publishing deals, and sponsorship contracts canceled.
It appears Deen’s story about Winfrey calling her is accurate, based on an August 2013 interview Winfrey gave to Entertainment Tonight. Speaking with the outlet (cited by Today.com), the media mogul said, “In the very first days [after the news broke] I tried to reach her and then I decided to stay out of it as I saw it blowing up.”
She added, “In time she will be fine. For me, it all just felt kind of sad… I just really want to know what happened.”
Canceled: The Paul Deen Story, TBA