Paula Deen Back in Crisis-Control Mode After Aunt Jemima Claims
By | omg! – 17 hours ago

Paula Deen (Photo by: Wilford Harewood/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)Just when the Prince of Cambridge popped out to knock Paula Deen from the headlines, new allegations are threatening to further damage her already fragile reputation.

The New York Times published a scathing new article on Thursday in which Dora Charles, a black cook who has worked for and been friends with Deen for 22 years, levies racism allegations against the celebrity chef.

During an interview from her home in Savannah, Georgia, Charles paints a picture of Deen’s rise to fame through the prism of their relationship. While Charles was making $10 an hour, she claims that Deen “don’t treat me the way they think she treat me,” claiming  that Deen even once said to her, “Stick with me, Dora, and I promise you one day if I get rich you’ll get rich.”

[Related: Paula Deen Fans Are Doing What With Empty Butter Wrappers?!]

The most troubling anecdote from the new article? … That Deen allegedly wanted another chef at the Lady & Sons (the Savannah restaurant that launched Deen’s career) — a woman named Ineata Jones — to dress like Aunt Jemima.

Charles claims that Deen used Jones for restaurant theater, and asked the hoecake cook to stand in the front of the restaurant and ring an iron dinner bell. According to the Times, an image of Jones performing this task was turned into a postcard later sold at Deen’s stores.

However, Charles — who says that she has heard Deen use racial slurs — said that she refused to ring the bell when asked to do so by Deen. “I said, ‘I’m not ringing no bell … That’s a symbol to me of what we used to do back in the day.'”

Deen denies Charles’s allegations in a statement issued to the Times through her publicity team. “Fundamentally Dora’s complaint is not about race but about money,” the statement reads. “It is about an employee that despite over 20 years of generosity feels that she still deserves yet even more financial support from Paula Deen.”

[Related: Paula Deen’s Scandal Scorecard]

Omg! reached out to Deen’s crisis PR company for further comment on the Times article, but has not yet heard back.

Although Charles still works for Deen, she tells the paper that she didn’t pursue her complaints in court because “I didn’t have nobody to stand behind me.” She adds that although she thinks she’ll leave Deen’s employ soon, “I still have to be her friend if I’m God’s child.”

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Jemima   Cached
    Aunt Jemima is a brand of pancake mix, syrup, and other breakfast foods currently owned by the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. The trademark dates to 1893, although …