Paula Deen has been in heaps of trouble over her alleged racist comments recently – from getting dropped by The Food Network, to complications in the discrimination case against her and her brother. However, Deen also has her supporters and she isn’t letting minor incidents like that get her down. On Wednesday, she once again tried to explain her side of the story in a heartfelt (sort of) interview on the Today show – the same Today show she skipped out on last week, due to exhaustion.

Paula Deen, Whole Foods Grand Tasting Village
Deen is sticking to her story.

This time she made an appearance, though, and what an appearance it was. “I’ve had to hold friends in my arms while they’ve sobbed because they know what’s been said about me is not true and I’m having to comfort them,” she told host Matt Lauer. And if you think those were all of Deen’s tearful revelations, you’d be sorely mistaken, because she went on: “I is what I is and I’m not changing,” she said. “There’s someone evil out there that saw what I worked for and wanted it.”

That’s not even the strangest part of the interview. For most of the remaining time, the former Food Network host went on to recite Bible passages at a visibly uncomfortable Lauer, such as the ever popular “cast the first stone quote”, and so on, and so on. It wouldn’t be an overestimation to say that Deen took her martyr role to heart. Then again, apparently that’s working for a lot of people – the Facebook page “We Support Paula Deen” currently has just under 425k likes. So in some respects at least, Deen’s strategy is working. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Paula Deen, Today Show
Did she just claim she was the victim of a plot?

Paula Deen, BookExpo America
That's one way to get support.