Paula Deen makes a pointed remark about the late chef and television host Anthony Bourdain in Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, a documentary that premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
The film, which traces Deen’s professional decline after she acknowledged using a racial slur while under oath during 2013 legal proceedings, touches on the public feud between Deen and Bourdain and includes newly filmed commentary and archival clips. In one sequence shown in the documentary, Deen says, “God rest his soul. I felt like he didn’t like anybody. Not even himself, maybe.” Entertainment Weekly reported on the film following its TIFF screening.
The documentary presents archival footage of the two chefs trading barbs. Bourdain, known for his travel and food programs No Reservations and Parts Unknown, is shown criticizing Deen’s cooking as novelty fare and saying she represented dangerously unhealthy cuisine. A clip in the film includes an earlier news compilation in which journalists recount Bourdain calling Deen the “worst, most dangerous person in America” because of her emphasis on indulgent, deep-fried dishes.
Deen’s responses to Bourdain are included in the film and in older television appearances. In a vintage appearance on The Joy Behar Show, she countered Bourdain’s critiques by saying, “Maybe [my food] is bad for you, but I don’t go around eating or serving unwashed anuses of wildebeests.” In Canceled, she again criticized Bourdain’s adventurous eating, saying, “I don’t know what he was off in these foreign countries eating. Bat brains, or something like that. I think I’ll just stick with my fried chicken.”
The documentary also incorporates footage of Bourdain responding to Deen’s remarks before his death. In one clip, he is shown referencing a quote and saying, “He’s probably still shooting dope, is probably what she’s saying in a nice kind of Southern way.” Bourdain died by suicide in 2018.
Deen’s 2013 courtroom admission that she had used the N-word resulted in widespread backlash, the loss of television deals and endorsements, and a reevaluation of her public persona as a benevolent representative of Southern cooking. Canceled: The Paula Deen Story revisits that controversy alongside the episodes of public criticism exchanged with Bourdain, situating the exchange within a broader arc of Deen’s career and the cultural scrutiny of celebrity chefs.
The documentary’s inclusion of the exchanges underscores how media coverage and televised confrontations shaped public perceptions of both chefs. The film’s premiere at TIFF drew renewed attention to debates about authenticity, culinary representation and the consequences public figures face after racially charged admissions or persistent criticism.
Entertainment Weekly covered the TIFF screening, and the film has since been the subject of reporting in multiple outlets. Canceled: The Paula Deen Story frames Deen’s remarks about Bourdain within its wider examination of her fall from favor, leaving the archival back-and-forth between the two chefs as part of a longer public record rather than a newly sparked controversy.
