Paula Deen steadfastly denies a new report that she once made an African-American employee dress up like Aunt Jemima, claiming it's a total fabrication.
The woman behind the story, Dora Charles, ran Deen's kitchens for 22 years and helped open her famous Lady & Sons restaurant in Georgia.
Charles told the New York Times that Paula Deen using racial slurs - which Paula recently admitted doing, vaguely, in the past - was the least of it.
The celebrity chef wanted to dress up her employees as humiliating stereotypes, and tried to make her ring a dinner bell for restaurant customers.
This, Charles felt, was racially charged. "That's a symbol to me of what we used to do back in the day," she told the publication in a new interview.
Charles also claims Deen tried to make another black employee, Ineata Jones, dress up in an "old style Aunt Jemima outfit" while flipping pancakes.
For her part, Deen says this is bogus and claims she has proof of it:
On July 6, Jones signed a legal document saying she had never felt discriminated against and never heard Deen spout racial slurs during her employment.
Deen's camp, which is also fending off a racial discrimination lawsuit by Lisa Jackson, responded: "Dora's complaint is not about race but about money."
"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."
Paula admits using the n-word in the past but insists she never directed the slur at employees, nor discriminated in any way against anyone.
Charles has not filed a lawsuit and says she has no plans to, but claims she wants to get her story out so everyone will "know the real Paula Deen."
At this point, there are some wildly conflicting accounts of who that is.
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