Names and faces

CNN’s prime-time talk show Piers Morgan Live is coming to an end, the news channel said Sunday. Piers Morgan, who succeeded Larry King in the 8 p.m. CST time slot three years ago, was drawing lackluster ratings. The air date for Morgan’s last show has not yet been determined, CNN said in a statement. Morgan is a former U.K. tabloid editor who reinvented himself as a TV personality with stints as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent and its U.S. spinoff, NBC’s America’s Got Talent, and as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice. Morgan told The New York Times that his show lately has “taken a bath in the ratings” but that he and CNN President Jeff Zucker were discussing a new role for him at the channel. Morgan served as editor of The Daily Mirror from 1995 to 2004. He has been questioned in connection with Britain’s long-running phone-hacking scandal, which has led to numerous arrests, resignations and the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.

Paula Deen continued maneuvering for a comeback Sunday, turning a beachside cooking demonstration in Miami Beach, Fla., into a public apology for the racial slurs that decimated her career last year. The former Food Network star took the stage to prepare chicken and dumplings at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, but before beginning she asked the crowd whether they minded if she talked about something serious fora moment. Without explicitly discussing the allegations or comments she has admitted making, she said she was glad to be back and that “I am not a quitter.” Last summer, during a legal dispute with a former employee who accused her of racial discrimination and sexual harassment, Deen acknowledged having used racial slurs in the past. Most of her endorsement, book and TV deals collapsed. Midway through the demonstration, Food Network star Robert Irvine joined Deen onstage. Irvine survived his own scandal in 2008 when the Food Network let him go over discrepancies in claims he’d made about his work experience. He eventually returned to the cable channel. “This is a warning to you,” Irvine told Deen. “You’ve apologized. You’ve eaten crow. You’re done. Don’t do it anymore. I’ve been there.” Before a roaring crowd, Irvine then got down on his hands and knees while Deen straddled his back and rode him across the stage, a reenactment of a gimmick they’d done during a previous festival. “I’m back in the saddle!” she yelled to the crowd.