In Mid May, the co-directors of the Miss California Pageant, Shanna Moakler and Keith Lewis, held a compelling press conference outlining the ways that Miss California Carrie Prejean had violated her contract with the organization. It wasn’t about her statements against same sex marriage during the Miss USA Pageant, but about the fact that she became the spokesperson for another group and failed to contact the pageant for almost a month after she catapulted to fame. (If you have some time, the seven and a half minute video of the press conference is worth watching.)
The day after Moakler and Lewis’ impassioned press conference, Donald Trump announced that Prejean would retain her crown. Trump’s statements at the time focused on Prejean’s attractiveness and on the fact that she had every right to express her opinion, something that Moakler and Lewis didn’t dispute. He also made several cringe-worthy remarks like “If her beauty wasn’t so great, nobody really would have cared [about her answer to the gay marriage question.]”
Shanna Moakler posed for photos with Prejean and acted like everything was ok at first, but then she quickly resigned her post on the Miss California pageant.
Then yesterday we heard that Prejean’s crown got taken away after all, after she repeatedly failed to fulfill her duties for the pageant and eventually managed to piss off Trump. He realized what Moakler and Lewis meant when they said she was unwilling to work with them, and explained “To me she was the sweetest thing. Everyone else — she treated like sh*t.”
Now that Trump has come around and fired Prejean, Moakler wants everyone to know that she wants her job back with the Miss California pageant. It’s not like she’s doing a hell of lot else other than reconciling and feuding with her ex husband.
What’s more is that Prejean still thinks she was fired for her opinion against gay marriage, not the multiple ways that she violated her contract and failed to do her job:
Carrie Prejean claims it was her answer during April’s Miss USA pageant about gay marriage that led to her ultimately being stripped of the Miss California title on Wednesday.
Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush broke the news to the beauty queen about her dethroning during a phone call for “The Billy Bush” show and in addition to saying she was surprised by the news, Prejean said the decision made by the Miss California Organization, and supported by Miss Universe pageant owner Donald Trump, was due to her expressing her view that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Prejean shared her views in answer to a question from Perez Hilton during the Miss USA competition.
“That’s the first that I’ve heard of it Billy,” Prejean said of her firing. “It’s just because of my answer, I think. None of this would be happening right now if I just said, ‘Yeah, gays should get married. You’re right Perez Hilton.”
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, on Wednesday, Miss California USA Executive Director Keith Lewis said in a statement that Prejean was fired from her post “based solely on contract violations including Ms. Prejean’s unwillingness to make appearances on behalf of the Miss California USA Organization.”
When asked about communication between herself and the organization, Prejean said they have been talking and she has been making appearances as Miss California.
“I’ve tried to reach out to them and I’ve done several appearances and I’m gonna be presenting at the Special Olympics this weekend as an honorary guest,” she said, revealing she was on her way to an appearance in San Diego when she spoke to Bush. “I mean, I’ve been cooperating with them. I don’t see why this is happening. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
[From Access Hollywood]
There’s even more to this story – Prejean told TMZ that she rejected offers from pageant directors to do Playboy and to go on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.” Pageant director Keith Lewis admitted to TMZ that he did tell Carrie about the Playboy offer, but said it was only because she asked him to let her know about every offer before turning anything down. She’s posed topless a few times so you could see why Lewis thought she might go for the easy cash with Playboy.
I saw Prejean on Good Morning America a few days after that huge controversy over the answer she gave during the pageant. She came across as personable, friendly and honest about her opinion. I don’t agree with her, but I think she has every right to her opinion and didn’t think she expressed it in a disrespectful way.
I don’t buy the fact that she was fired for not doing Playboy or for having a controversial opinion, though. If you read the e-mails she sent that were partially published on TMZ, she was super rude. You could tell that Moakler and Lewis were fed up with her a month ago after trying in vain to get in touch with her. She continued to shirk her responsibilities and eventually got canned. It hasn’t been about her opinion for some time.
Photos are from the press conference on 5/12/09 when it was announced that Prejean would retain her crown. Credit: WENN.com
Ok let’s be good and assume that her opinions on marriage have no role in this. If one reads the emails that got posted on TMZ, it simply sounds like the pageant folks were trying to have her appear only to those events they wanted, and possibly in those in which she couldn’t articulate anything but a smile. I’m glad she has her own voice, and wish more beauty pageant contestants wouldn’t resign to act like a silly girl in order to get or keep a crown.
This woman is stupid. Just because she has 15 minutes doesn’t mean she can ignore her duties as Miss California. Considering that even Trump says she sucks, she really needs to look in the mirror.
It is about her opinion. If someone came out and openly discriminated about race or openly approved oppression, people would not stand for it. That’s the way I see this anti-gay stance, it is oppression and discrimination end of story.
She’s a narcissist attention whore who thinks she can get by on her looks. That’ll work for a few years in the strip club she ends up working at. I like her frilly purple shirt, though.
What a delusional twit. But it was about her opinion when Donald had to decide if she would stay. That was settled, now it’s the fact she can’t uphold her duties.
Fox news is calling again; she’s set for her next 15 minutes. Let’s hope she just goes away after that.
I think they are still pissed that Trump backed her instead of them, so they have set up all of this nonsense to sabatoge her in some way. In a way she should be happy that she is no longer Miss. Cali. This frees her up to take on other offers she probably couldn’t have with the Miss. Cali chains all over her.
She’ll probably try acting next and then Shauna will really be upset.
Just goes to show that vapid little girls who breeze through life on their good looks don’t make the best people to work with or to fullfill their responsibilities…
Carrie got fired because she is rude…LOL…Donald ROCKS! It is so awesome that Ms PrissyJeansrude behavior was not tolerated. Now I wish this would apply in the retail world, but if that were the case hardly any managers would have jobs.
Awesome, now can she go the f*ck away already now that she finally has absolutely no relevance to anything? Not that she had much to begin with, but you get my point.
I have to say she must be a total bitch because it’s almost unheard of Trump going back on his word and changing something once announcing it. With his personality, hell would have to freeze over for him to fire someone after publicly declaring otherwise.
@Rosanna I agree it’s great she’s got a voice. But she was under contract to them. T do what they asked her, make only the appearances they wanted unless she had approval. She violated her contract and they could potentially sue her for breach of contract.
I don’t like her views, but I will defend her right to have them and state them as long as she doesn’t actually attack people.
However as her e-mails showed she was rude, and told them she was doing another appearance without their permission-breach of contract. They were well within their rights to fire her.
I disagree with Donald Trumps statement.
Regardless of Carrie Prejean’s beauty,she is uneducated,and had offended many people,especially the gay community.
Yes,I believe in freedom of speech as well,but Miss USA should be a role model,and this Carrie Prejean is not.
Seems like Carrie Prejean is desperately trying to hold onto her 15 minutes of fame.
She just give up,and do a layout for Playboy,as it’s safe to assume they have probably made offers to her already.lol
Of course she thinks it’s about her opinion, her initial opinion is what made her relevant in the first place.
It’s not about her opinion at this point. There’s just no way you can construe it like that.
This is getting ridiculous. I’m so sick of her.
Answering the infamous question didn’t cause her to get stripped of her title, it just showed the world how ignorant she really is.
Failing to show up for scheduled events, cancelling on appearances, not communicating with pageant officials, that’s what caused her to lose the title.
She is so pathetic and creepy.. stfu and go away already you dumb bi***
She became too BIG to wear the crown. Point blank. She wanted to pick and choose her appearances and speaking events. No one representing a specific organization can do that without proper authorization. She’s entitled to her opinion. But she’s also obligated to honor her contract. If she didn’t do that, she deserved to be fired.
I think she’s just trying to beat a dead horse to create more attention for herself. We get it she has an opinion but that does not mean she can pick and choose what part of her contract she will abide by. She knew that she would be bound by a contract and had to appear where they needed her to and say what they needed her to say. If she wanted to express her own opinion then she shouldn’t have signed up for such an organization, nobody forced her to she made that choice. Also if she didn’t want to be silenced and wanted to do what she wanted she had the choice to leave and she didn’t.
she got fired for her opinion – in a 6 degrees of separation type of way. she said what she said, realized that she had an audience in that arena, blew off her initial responsibility and figured out another way to get paid.
so be it. ciao!
She has every right to her opinion and the people she offended have every right to theirs. That said Carrie, please! go away. Far far away.
There was this man my husband worked with who slept at his desk nearly every day. He was reprimanded for it a couple of times when he suddenly came in one day and told everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, that he had AIDS. He even told his customers on the phone that he had AIDS. The guys in the warehouse. The custodians, the secretaries, everyone.
They fired him for sleeping at his desk, which he did again after the AIDS announcement. He threatened to sue, since he said he was being fired for having AIDS. The owners said bring it, you’re being fired for NOT DOING YOUR JOB.
Same thing as this. (And guess what? Shock: he did NOT have AIDS. I think he saw that Tom Hanks movie one night and thought he had a great idea on his hands. Idiot.)
Prejean needs to go finish out her 15 minutes with her fellow bigots, then be forgotten.
How did TMZ get those emails. And how does TMZ always seem to get legal documents, emails, stuff it would take a judge and a private eye or ENORMOUS amounts of CASH to constantly get ahold of, so easily and quickly all the time?
Wow, what-ever hookups TMZ has really makes me question who owns and runs it. And who are they connected with?
They need to do away with these damn pageants anyway. It’s all bullshit! Who cares what beauty queens think about politics–it’s irrelevant to their position. Oh ya, they’re supposed to be ambassadors, please!
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