Paula Deen returns to ‘Today’; is the world ready for more?

Paula Deen is ready for a comeback, but is the world ready to welcome her?

In the first step of a campaign to return the disgraced former queen of Southern television cooking to the airwaves, Deen and her sons Bobby and Jamie appeared Tuesday morning on the “Today” show with Matt Lauer, the scene of an emotional interview more than a year ago at the height of the scandal.

“I didn’t recognize that woman,” Deen said of her previous appearance. “That was a woman in trauma and shock, trying to understand what happened. The cold, hard fact is I probably should not have been here. I probably should have been at home and maybe even under the care of a doctor.”

Deen, once a popular figure on the Food Network, lost her television shows and lucrative endorsement deals with companies including Target, QVC and Wal-Mart, after she admitted that she had used a racial epithet in the past -- she says 30 years ago. The admission was made in a deposition after she and her brother Bubba were sued by a former employee who claimed sexual harassment and racial discrimination. The suit was later dismissed by a judge.

Now Deen and her sons are launching a subscription online cooking channel of their own, carrying a mix of new programming -- they say they’ve put together 100 new shows and will roll out 20 a week -- and old Food Network shows they bought this week for an undisclosed sum.

But first comes the difficult task of rebuilding the Paula Deen brand. Tuesday, Deen was apologetic, but chose her words carefully, seeming to try to balance apologizing without admitting she’d done anything wrong.

When asked by Lauer what the main lesson she’d learned from the scandal was, she answered, “The power of words. I don’t care how old they are. They can hurt and they can make people happy. Well, my words hurt people. They disappointed people. And frankly, I disappointed myself and for that I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for the hurt I caused people because it went deep -- people lost their jobs.”

Deen also revealed that she was working on a book about her experiences, and a documentary telling her side of the story, which will be aired only on her own channel.

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