Paula Deen Joins Dancing With the Stars Season 21 Cast

Just call her the comeback queen. Paula Deen will be taking a twirl on the dance floor this fall on the new season of Dancing With the Stars, a source confirms to Us Weekly.

The former Food Network star turned down the offer to tango on TV last year because it was “not the appropriate forum for her,” a source told Us at the time.

Now, however, it appears that she’ll be joining the likes of Bindi Irwin and Nick Carter on the competitive dance floor (Us exclusively broke the news that the former boy bander, 35, will be joining the cast; Irwin, 17, announced her gig this past Monday on Good Morning America).

ABC has not yet confirmed this casting.

In 2013, Deen, 68, found herself in hot water after she admitted to using the N-word during a videotaped deposition. The Food Network dropped her show, Paula’s Best Dishes, and she lost multiple endorsement deals.

But all was not lost for the controversial celebrity chef. In 2014, Deen announced that she would be starting her own online cooking network.

“Guess who’s going digital, y’all! I’m so excited about my new online network and can’t wait to show everyone what we’ve been working on,” she said in a statement in June 2014. “We’re going to have so much fun being together and cooking up some wonderful new and classic dishes.”

Then, nearly two years after the notorious incident, Deen made headlines once more this past July after posting a photo of her son Bobby Deen sporting brownface.

“Lucyyyyyyyy! You got a lot of esplainin’ to do! #TransformationTuesday” Deen captioned the photo of herself dressed like Lucy Ricardo from the hit ‘50s sitcom I Love Lucy. In the snapshot, Bobby posed as Ricky Ricardo, who was of Cuban descent.

The tweet was quickly deleted after living less than an hour online.

E! News was first to break the story about Deen’s DWTS gig.

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