Paula deen racial slur controversy

Stick a fork in this butterball — she’s been deep fried and deep-sixed by the Food Network.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen, 66, was canned by the cable channel on Friday after releasing a groveling video apology on YouTube for using the N-word and cracking racist jokes at her Savannah, Ga., restaurant.

“I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong I have done.

I want to learn and grow from this,” she said in the second video posted on YouTube. “Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable.”

But the ham-handed apology was not enough to save her job with the Food Network.

Friday, officials at the channel, where Deen rose to fame with her brand of butter and deep-fried fueled down-home Southern cooking, said they would not renew her contract, which expires at the end of the month.

Between her TV work, speaking engagements, cookbooks, licensing and endorsements, Forbes estimates her wealth at $17 million.

Network sources