Paula Deen Slams the Late Anthony Bourdain in New Documentary, Claims ‘He Started Something With Me’

Paula Deen is stirring the pot.

The 78-year-old celebrity chef debuted her documentary Canceled: The Paula Deen Story at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 6 — and in the film, she addresses her feud with fellow chef Anthony Bourdain.

“Anthony Bourdain did call me the most dangerous woman in America,” Deen recalled in the documentary, before footage flashed to journalists in 2011 saying how the travel documentarian described her as the “worst, most dangerous person in America,” per Entertainment Weekly.

“This is not Southern food she’s been selling,” the late Bourdain said in one clip in which he slammed Deen’s cooking. “Her brand has been all these years, novelty food.”

The doc recalled how the food network star hit back at Bourdain’s remarks on The Joy Behar Show, critiquing his cuisine at the time — and in her present-day documentary interview, she did the same.

“I don’t know what he was off in these foreign countries eating. Bat brains or something like that,” she stated in her interview. “I think I’ll just stick with my fried chicken.”

Another clip features Bourdain calling back to Deen’s remarks in a 2012 interview with Prevention magazine, in which she responded, “I know he’s had his demons, and I hope they’re under control,” when asked what she would serve him for dinner.

“He’s probably still shooting dope, is probably what she’s saying in a nice kind of Southern way,” Bourdain responded at the time.

“He started something with me, and I’d never even met him,” Deen said towards the end of the segment, before footage flashed to her trying to get Bourdain to try one of her home-cooked meals.

The last clip features Bourdain telling a journalist that a “nuclear war” would have to take place for him to be willing to try Deen’s food.

The former Paula’s Home Cooking host also commented on Bourdain’s death by suicide in June 2018.

“God rest his soul. I felt like he didn’t like anybody,” she said. “Not even himself, maybe.”