Scandal-plagued celebrity chef Paula Deen has sparked rumors that she may be secretly cooking up a divorce settlement with her husband of 11 years after quietly handing over the deed to a million-dollar home to him.
According to documents filed in Georgia earlier this year, Southern cooking queen Deen, 68, granted her husband, Michael Groover, the deed to their three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 5,646-square-foot Savannah, Ga., mansion worth an estimated $1.3 million.
Deen and white-bearded tugboat driver Groover originally purchased the home back in 2004 — the same year the two were married — for an undisclosed amount. The house has been the location for the filming of her show.
The documents filed by Deen earlier this year state the transfer is a “deed of gift” to Groover and that she is handing over all her rights to the home “for and in consideration of her natural love and affection for her husband.”
Deen — whose cooking empire crumbled when she was fired from the Food Network after she admitted to using a racial slur in 2013 — and her husband have battled divorce rumors over the past few years. Reports have claimed she was close to leaving Groover after discovering he had an alleged affair with a “sexy, middle-aged brunette,” which he strongly denied. Now insiders speculate the deed transfer could be part of a private divorce settlement.
But a spokesman for Deen said, “These rumors are completely false — they have a wonderful marriage. This deed of gift was just a part of Paula’s estate-planning process. Her new cookbook, ‘Paula Deen Cuts the Fat,’ comes out on Sept. 8 and is dedicated to her husband, Michael.” A source added the couple was recently seen slow dancing all night at the opening of Deen’s new restaurant in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
The home that Paula gave to her husband isn’t the only property she owns — she still has her sprawling, eight-bedroom, 8½-bath, 28,000-square-foot “Riverbend” estate, also located in Savannah, worth more than $4 million.