Overview

• Canceled: The Paula Deen Story premiered Sept. 6 at the Toronto International Film Festival, with distribution still to be determined.
• Deen says her admission in a 2013 deposition referred to language she used while recounting a 1987 armed bank robbery, a context she emphasizes in the film.
• Her current lawyer, Bill Glass, argues the question asking whether she had ever used the slur was irrelevant to the case and should have drawn an objection, while Deen calls her then-attorney inept.
• The underlying lawsuit by former manager Lisa Jackson was settled and dismissed by a federal judge, yet Deen lost her Food Network role and major endorsements and she maintains she never used racist language in her restaurants.
• Deen declines a fresh apology in the film, says she is still not OK and wants her reputation back, and comments on past media treatment including Matt Lauer, saying of his later downfall that some people deserve it.