What happened with Paula Deen and Anthony Bourdain? Feud explored as the chef slams late rival

American celebrity chef, cookbook author, and TV personality Paula Deen reignited her feud with late rival Anthony Bourdain, who died by suicide in June 2018, aged 61. In her upcoming documentary, Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, Deen claimed that nobody liked Bourdain when he was alive.

“God rest his soul. I felt like he didn’t like anybody. Not even himself, maybe,” Paula stated in the documentary, as per Entertainment Weekly.

She and Anthony Bourdain feuded between 2007 and 2012. He called Paula Deen “the worst, most dangerous person to America” during his 2011 interview with TV Guide Magazine, adding that her food "sucks." He also called it "novelty food" instead of "Southern food."

“I like the quote, it was, ‘Well, he has had his demons, I hope he has them under control.’ ‘He’s probably still shooting dope,’ is probably what she’s saying in a nice kind of Southern way,” Bourdain said about Deen back then.

The now-78-year-old chef responded by telling Page Six at the time, “Anthony Bourdain needs to get a life.”

Now, in her documentary, Paula Deen criticized her late rival’s food habits alongside his shows, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

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

It remains unclear whether Bourdain ever consumed bat brains.

Notably, Deen expressed her regret about the feud. She was heard saying in the new documentary, “He started something with me, and I’d never even met him.”

Paula’s son, Bobby, dismissed Anthony’s comments, claiming they were “inaccurate.”

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More about Paula Deen’s beef with Anthony Bourdain

During his 2011 TV Guide Magazine interview, Anthony Bourdain not only called Paula Deen “dangerous” and “worst,” but also claimed that she “revels in unholy connections with evil corporations” and was “proud of the fact that her food is f**king bad for you.”

“If I were on at seven at night and loved by millions of people at every age, I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it's OK to eat food that is killing us,” Bourdain said of Deen’s recipes having high sugar content.

Deen subsequently appeared on The Joy Behar Show and hit back at Bourdain by saying:

“Let me tell you something, girlfriend. Maybe [my food] is bad for you, but I don’t go around eating or serving unwashed an*ses of wildebeests.”

The former Paula’s Party host also told Page Six that Bourdain didn’t need to like her food. However, he had no right to “attack” her character. She also defended her Food Network colleagues, Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri, and Sandra Lee, whom Anthony called out at the time.

“My good friends Rachael, Guy, and Sandra are the most generous, charitable folks I know. I have no idea what Anthony has done to contribute besides being irritable,” Deen stated.

She also claimed that, unlike Bourdain, “Not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine.” Paula Deen mentioned she and her friends “cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills.”

Speaking to Fox & Friends that same year, the Positively Paula showmaker responded to Bourdain’s criticism by inviting him to her house and tasting her meal cooked by her. “If you still feel that way about me, so be it,” she added.

According to Us Magazine, Anthony Bourdain was once documented eating a warthog's an*s in a No Reservations episode, during his Namibia trip. He explained that lesson one for a traveler was to “always gratefully accept” the food given by the locals as a “gesture of hospitality.”

“Because no matter how weird or horrible it may seem to you, for someone else, it’s their means of subsistence,” he justified.

Before their 2011 back-and-forth, the late A Cook’s Tour host slammed Deen in a 2007 Reddit blog post, according to Mashed. He began by sharing his reluctance to bash “what seems to be a nice old lady.” However, Anthony soon mocked her “supporting cast,” comparing them to “The Hills Have Eyes,” and described her food as a “True Buffet of Horrors.”

Anthony Bourdain mentioned that Paula Deen’s Hawaii show was “indistinguishable from an early John Waters film,” but admitted that he would “like to see her mad.” He didn’t stop there. The Layover host compared Paula to a character from Pink Flamingos.

In the same Reddit AMA thread, the Kitchen Confidential author rejected the notion that Paula Deen was selling “traditional Southern food.”

"The South is where the greatest American traditional food comes from. It's the cradle of American gastronomy. I reject the notion that what Paula was selling is traditional Southern food. Cheeseburger on a Krispie Kreme bun? Nobody's grandma I ever heard of EVER made that s**t," he noted.

The Georgia native didn’t respond to her New Yorker rival in 2007. Later, in 2012, the duo feuded yet again. He commented on her diabetes diagnosis and reports of collaboration with a diabetes drug company.

“When your signature dish is a hamburger in between a doughnut, and you've been cheerfully selling this stuff… It's in bad taste if nothing else… I take no pleasure in it. There ain't nothing funny about diabetes,” he told Eater.

During his appearance at the 2012 South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Florida, Anthony Bourdain slammed chef Eddie Huang for calling him a “hypocrite” about his diabetes-related remarks against Paula. He acknowledged being an ex-smoker himself, but pointed out that he never collaborated with a medicine company to avoid lung diseases.

Deen responded by saying he didn’t care what her “haters and naysayers” said, adding that if they made jokes about her, she’d laugh and acknowledge they were funny. Her comments were made during a conversation with USA Today and later shared by ABC.

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Canceled: The Paula Deen Story revolves around Deen’s career as a caterer, turned chef, turned author, turned cooking reality show host. It also highlights her 2013 racism scandal. The documentary's release date is unknown.