Food Network star, author, and businesswoman, Paula Deen, has made quite a splash in the culinary world and in the realm of entertainment.
Between having her own show, writing 14 cookbooks, and facing scandals, there’s never a dull moment with her!
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Here are some random facts about Paula that fans didn’t know.
1. Her grandmother taught her how to cook.
Everything that Paula knows about cooking Southern comfort food, she learned from her grandma!
“She taught me that, in order to have good fried chicken, you should wash and season the bird the morning you’re preparing it for dinner,” Paula told Good Housekeeping .
“Don’t wait and do it right before you start cooking. Throw it in the refrigerator, seasoned, that morning, and give it a chance to soak up all the salt and pepper and goodness.”
2. She first became interested in cooking when she was a Sophomore in high school.
“Growing up, I had a very busy social life,” she told Good Housekeeping .
“It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school that I asked Mama if I could come into the kitchen and have her teach me how to cook something.”
3. She was 42 years old when she launched her first business.
When Paula was 42 years old, she started her own catering business called, The Bag Lady.
Evidently, business must have been booming because her big break in the culinary industry was soon to follow.
4. She suffered from depression and agoraphobia.
By the time Paula had turned 23 years old, she had lost both her mother and father.
Understandably, this sent her into a dark place, mentally, for quite some time. It wasn’t until 1989 when she decided to “get out of bed and start living life to the fullest.”
5. Before her success in the culinary industry, she worked several other unrelated jobs.
Paula didn’t always know that cooking was going to become her career.
Before finding success in her current field, she tried to work as someone who hangs wallpaper, a bank teller, a real estate agent, and an insurance broker.
6. She credits her dogs for how she met her husband.
Paula met her husband, tugboat captain, Michael Groover, after her dogs accidentally got loose in his yard. That’s one way to break the ice!
The two started chatting, and Michael ended up asking her on a date .
“When I first met Paula, I wasn’t thinkin’ of marriage. I’d recently come off a long and tough marriage, and I felt like I’d been rode hard and put up wet. I’d just given up on anything serious with any woman on the planet,” Michael told *TODAY*.
“I was just standin’ around outside, mindin’ my own damn business, in my own damn backyard,” he went on.
“Then I noticed these two tiny, sorry-lookin’ black-and-white dogs who were mighty busy poopin’ all over my lawn .”
7. She loves making art out of seashells.
When Paula isn’t cooking, you can find her making abstract sculptures out of shells .
She revealed on social media that it’s her favorite hobby and that she finds it “therapeutic.”
8. Her estate includes a “dive-in” movie theater in the backyard.
Surely, you’ve heard of a drive-in. But have you heard of a dive-in?
In Paula’s backyard, she has a giant screen in front of her in-ground pool so that she and guests can watch movies while they swim .
9. She is naturally a brunette.
While her signature look has been voluminous and blonde for as long as we can remember, she is naturally a brunette.
She has posted tons of throwback photos on her Instagram with her natural hair.
10. She won’t leave the house without fake eyelashes.
There are plenty of women (and men) that follow their beauty routines religiously! For Paula, that means never leaving the house without a pair of false lashes on.
“I will not leave my house without my fake eyelashes,” she told Us Weekly .
11. Her favorite meal is steak and potatoes.
Despite being a great cook, Paula’s favorite meal is a simple one.
You can’t go wrong with steak and potatoes. It’s a classic for a reason, I’ll give her that!
12. The *Food Network* dropped her show after she made racist remarks.
After Paula and her brother got sued by a former employee at one of their restaurants for alleged sexual and racial harassment, Paula admitted to TODAY that she has used the n-word several times in the past and even tried to throw her brother a “plantation-themed” birthday party.
Additionally, she admitted to telling jokes about Jewish and black people.
“They’re jokes. I can’t determine was offends another person,” she said.
After her court case went public, her TV show on the Food Network was subsequently canceled and several other business deals she had on the go fell through.
13. She was later invited on the *TODAY* show to tell her side of the story.
Rather than apologizing, however, she used the opportunity to say that she didn’t think she deserved the backlash she’d been receiving.
Despite having admitted to using the n-word many times, she said that she didn’t believe she should have been fired from the network because she doesn’t think she is racist .
