Paula Deen
American cook, cooking show host, restaurateur, author, actress, and television personality
Paula Ann Hiers Deen (born January 19, 1947) is an American chef, cookbook author, and TV personality. Deen resides in Savannah, Georgia. She has published fifteen cookbooks and owned and operated The Lady & Sons restaurant with her sons, Jamie and Bobby Deen, until its closure in 2025.
Early life and family
Deen was born Paula Ann Hiers in Albany, Georgia, the daughter of Corrie A. Hiers (née Paul) and Earl Wayne Hiers Sr. Her great-great-great grandfather, John Batts, was a wealthy politician and planter who owned a large plantation near Smithville, Georgia. Deen was 19 when her father died unexpectedly aged 40, and her mother died four years later aged 44. Prior to her father's death, Paula, aged 18, married Jimmy Deen and in 1967 they had their first son James ("Jamie"), and in 1970 a second son Robert ("Bobby") was born. In her 20s, Deen suffered from depression and agoraphobia and began to spend more time preparing food for her family, as it was something she could do without leaving her house. Deen's cooking style had been informed by her grandmother Irene Paul, who had taught her the art of Southern cooking that Deen described as "real farmhouse cooking, the kind that takes all day". In 1989, Deen and her husband Jimmy divorced.
The public source identifies “Paula Deen” as american cook, cooking show host, restaurateur, author, actress, and television personality. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Paula, Deen and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3071037. VIAF identifies the subject as 78068783. The Library of Congress control number is n97093996. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 2025, 1967 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paula Deen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.