Piers Morgan Offers Paula Deen Sympathies as TV Chef Fires Back Against Accuser

CNN host shows some compassion for Paula Deen's career freefall while the disgraced food guru launches a legal counterattack against the woman who sued her for racial harassment

By Josh Grossberg Jun 28, 2013 9:31 PMTags
Paula Deen, Piers MorganRob Hill, Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Not a whole lot of celebs are rushing to defend Paula Deen, but count Piers Morgan among the few who think the mass desertion by her corporate sponsors might be a little hypocritical.

The CNN gabber took to Twitter Friday to offer some sympathy to the embattled TV chef while at the same time using the controversy over her admitted utterance of the N-word to bring up his favorite cause of passing sensible gun laws.

"Walmart dumped Paula Deen, but continued to sell AR-15 assault rifles after Sandy Hook—interesting ethical credo," the 48-year-old Morgan tweeted.

The Piers Morgan Live host was quick to add however: "That doesn't mean I support what the errant celebrities did, just means I admire loyalty in times of crisis #pauladeen."

Despite a tearful apology from Deen on Today and denials that she's a racist, Walmart went ahead and cut ties with the 66-year-old Southern cook and announced it would no longer carry her products after she acknowledged in a deposition that she had spoken the racial slur in the past.

However, Morgan couldn't resist in his pointed critique knocking the retail giant for being quick to drop Deen while failing to stop the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons, like the kind used in recent mass shootings in Newtown, Conn. or last summer's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo.

"I feel fonder to firms that stand by shamed celebrities, than I do to those that dump them like a sack of spuds. #PaulaDeen #loyalty," Piers noted.

Meanwhile, as Deen continues to shed business partners, the former Food Network star is going after the former restaurant employee who had her deposed in the first place as part of a racial harassment lawsuit the latter brought against her.

Per court docs obtained by E! News, Deen alleges that the plaintiff Lisa Jackson gave false information in a core claim of her complaint, which she filed after she was fired as general manager of Paula's Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah.

Deen's filing notes that Jackson asserted in her suit that she had biracial nieces with an African-American father. So the TV personality's utterance of the N-word—which she copped to in the deposition—was even more personally offensive to Jackson, who's Caucasian, than to another white citizen.

However Deen's lawyers argued that during her deposition Jackson admitted the nieces in question were actually those of her partner's, who testified that the kids' dad was Hispanic, not African-American.

Deen's camp also notes that the plaintiff testified that she had never heard the chef make a racist remark and has no evidence Deen ever dropped the N-word in connection with her brother Bubba Hiers' wedding.

Consequently, Deen's lawyers are asking a judge to dismiss the suit for lack of standing on the grounds Jackson was pursuing race-based claims of discrimination that don't exist and that she was not, in fact, subject to a hostile work environment as she alleges. They're also asking for a court to fine her with sanctions as well.

An attorney for Jackson was unavailable for comment.