WAL-MART LATEST TO END RELATIONSHIP WITH DEEN
Paula Deen lost another chunk of her empire Wednesday.
Wal-Mart announced that it has ended its relationship with the Southern celebrity chef, part of the continuing fallout in the wake of revelations that she used racial slurs in the past. The world’s largest retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., currently carries a variety of products under her moniker, including food items, cookware, and health and wellness products, at all of its 4,000 U.S. namesake stores. The retailer began selling her merchandise several years ago.
“We will not place new orders beyond those already committed,” said Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “We will work with suppliers to address existing inventories and agreements.”
Tovar said the retailer is still working through the details with suppliers.
Wal-Mart’s decision is the latest blow to Deen’s business. Caesars announced earlier Wednesday that her name is being stripped from its buffet restaurants in Joliet, Ill.; Tunica, Miss.; Cherokee, N.C.; and Elizabeth, Ind.
Last week, Food Network executives said that the channel would not renew the celebrity cook’s contract. And on Monday, Smithfield Foods dropped her as a spokeswoman. her.
Deen said she appreciated fans who have expressed anger at the Food Network for dropping her but said she didn’t support a boycott of the network.
“These people who have met me and know me and love me, they’re as angry as the people who are reading these stories that are lies,” she said.
The result is “Freedom Song (They’ll Never Take Us Down),” a new patriotically themed song that Diamond will release through iTunes and Amazon on July 2. All proceeds from the song will go to benefit the Boston One Fund and the Wounded Warriors Project.
Diamond watched coverage of the April 15 bombings unfold from afar, then visited the city the following Saturday. The Boston Red Sox in recent years have adopted the 72-year-old singer’s hit “Sweet Caroline” as an eighth-inning anthem and had invited him to perform it live.
The city was still reeling from the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three and injured more than 250 five days earlier, and the ensuing manhunt, but its residents responded to the attacks defiantly.
Diamond returned home and began work on “Freedom Song.” He said in a phone interview it took about six weeks to write and record.
He will perform the song live for the first time July 4 in Washington, D.C., at a Washington Nationals-Milwaukee Brewers baseball game and during PBS’ “A Capitol Fourth” (8 p.m. on KLVX-TV, Channel 10), which will be broadcast from the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
“I didn’t know exactly what would happen with this song, but I did know I had to write it,” Diamond said. “So I set out on that creative journey of writing something that would lift people up, lift their spirits in the way that mine was lifted when I flew to Boston to sing at the Red Sox game.”