Paula Deen and Brother Sued for Sexual Harassment
Food Network star Paula Deen, who announced earlier this year that she’s battling diabetes, has another war on her hands: she and her brother Bubba Hiers are being sued for sexual harassment, infliction of emotional distress and assault.
The suit was filed by Lisa Jackson, the former general manager at the siblings’ Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah, Ga. Jackson claims Deen and Hiers made offensive, sexist and racist comments during her five-year stint at the eatery that ended in 2010.
Jackson’s legal filing says Hiers viewed pornography websites at work, kissed/spat at her face, and asked her to “bring photos of herself when she was young for him to view.” Hiers also allegedly made repeated comments about other the weight and personal sex lives of other female employees, even telling one who’d recently gotten dentures, “I bet your husband is going to like that.”
Even worse, Jackson says the brother and sister team are unbelievably racist, and alleges that when she asked what she should wear to a catered event in 2007, Deen replied (NOTE CONTENT):
Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n****** 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.”
Deen and her brother have yet to respond to the lawsuit.