Celebrity News

Paula Deen accused in lawsuit of using the n-word

Paula Deen is accused of using the n-word and uttering a slur for female genitalia in front of employees in a new lawsuit filed in Georgia yesterday, reports say.

Radar Online reported that the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Lisa Jackson, who worked for Paula Deen Enterprises for five years and claims to have toiled closely with Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, co-owner of Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah. Jackson left her job as general manager of the restaurant in 2010.

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Jackson alleges that Deen dropped a racial epithet in 2007 when Jackson asked about server uniforms while she was coordinating Hiers’ wedding.

Jackson claims that Deen said, “Well what I would really like is a bunch of little [bleeps] to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties. You know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around. Now, that would be a true Southern wedding wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

Jackson also alleges that Deen used a distasteful term for female genitalia in her presence. The lawsuit states that when Jackson was promoted to general manger of Bubba’s Oyster House, Deen told her, “If you think I have worked this hard to lose everything because of a piece of [bleep], you better think again.”

Jackson’s lawsuit also makes several allegations about Hiers, saying that he used the n-word himself, in reference to President Obama.

Jackson claims that Hiers subjected her to sexual harassment by regularly viewing pornography in the small office that they shared. She also alleges that Hiers once passed out a printout of two women having sex along with the words “Why Gay Marriage Should Be Legal.”

Jackson says that when she complained to management, no action was taken.

Deen fired back against the allegations in a statement released by her spokesperson Tuesday night.

“We investigated those claims and attempted unsuccessfully to address those claims with her. She has made baseless, inflammatory allegations, threatening to go to the press and ruin Paula Deen’s reputation and the reputation of her businesses unless we paid her a large sum of money. We refused to bow to that kind of pressure and refused to pay money to address false claims.

“Ms. Jackson’s complaint makes false allegations against Paula Deen and they will be proven false in court. We have filed our defensive pleadings with the court denying Ms. Jackson’s claims and those pleadings are a matter of public record. We will hold Ms. Jackson and her lawyer accountable for these false allegations. We look forward to our day in court and have nothing further to say.”

Deen’s lawyer spoke briefly about the lawsuit to ABCNews.com this morning.

“From this point forward we’re not commenting,” he said. “We don’t comment on pending litigation except to the extent that I’ve already commented. We will file our defense proceedings this week and we will file some motions.”