Paula Deen

Background

Paula Ann Hiers Deen was born on January 19, 1947, in Albany, Georgia, to Wayne Hiers and Corrie Hiers. She grew up in her maternal grandparent’s home, and it was from her grandmother, Irene Paul, that she learned the art of cooking. She attended Albany High School, graduating in 1965, after which she married her high school sweetheart, Jimmy Deen. Deen’s father passed away in 1966 at the age of 40; her mother passed four years later. These tragic events, in addition to the challenge of raising her two children, and being robbed at gunpoint while working as a bank teller, were a period of cumulative adversity. This was so overwhelming for her that she suffered frequent panic attacks and bouts of agoraphobia.

In 1987, Deen moved to Savannah, Georgia, with her sons and took a job in a hospital. In 1989, she launched her catering service, The Bag Lady, which entailed cooking lunch for her colleagues in the hospital in lunch bags that her sons delivered. This marked the beginning of Deen’s professional cooking career. She opened her first restaurant, The Lady, in 1991 at a hotel in Savannah, and the business flourished. She moved to a larger space in downtown Savannah in 1996 and rebranded it as The Lady & Sons, marking the crucial role that her two sons played in the business. The Lady & Sons gained a large customer base in the years that followed.

In 1998, she published “The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook,” a compilation of some of her favorite recipes. The release of the book heralded Deen’s rise as a celebrity chef, as it sold close to 70,000 copies in one day and led to the launch of “Paula’s Home Cooking,” her television show on the Food Network in 2002. The show topped the network’s ratings and, in 2007, earned Deen an Emmy Award for ‘Outstanding Lifestyle Host.’ The success of the show led Deen to create two more cooking shows for the network: “Paula’s Party” (2006 — 2008) and “Paula’s Best Dishes” (2008 — 2013).

By 2012, she had released several cookbooks, launched the “Cooking with Paula Deen” magazine, and published her autobiography, which was a “New York Times” bestseller. She also opened many restaurants at casinos across the country and developed lines of kitchenware and food products.

In 2013 her contract with The Food Network was not renewed, following her confession in a lawsuit regarding the use of racial slurs. Retail outlets stopped selling her branded merchandise in their stores. Other companies also severed their ties with her.
In 2014 she launched The Paula Deen Network, a subscriber-based digital network. In 2015, she undertook several other ventures, including launching a mobile game and releasing another cookbook that made the “New York Times” bestseller list. Deen also started a podcast and a radio show. In 2016, she launched two new television shows and a clothing line. Deen opened many new restaurants and released more cookbooks, including “Paula Deen’s Air Fryer Cookbook” (2016) and “Favorite Recipes of Her Lady and Her Friends” (2017).

Deen married her husband in 1965, and they had two sons — Jamie and Bobby. The couple divorced in 1989. Since 2004, she has been married to Michael Groover, a tugboat captain in the Port of Savannah, Georgia.