BEVERLY HILLS - One thing reigns supreme when it comes to the gay marriage-hating Miss California: Mass confusion.Donald Trump will reveal Tuesday whether he's telling Carrie Prejean "You're Fired!" or letting her keep her crown, but state officials just couldn't wait. While acknowledging it's Trump's decision - he owns the pageant - they took the bizarre step Monday of naming Prejean's runnerup, Tami Farrell, a special "Beauty of California Ambassador."
Prejean has failed to make appearances, complained Miss California USA co-executive directors Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler. She became a lightning rod for the gay marriage issue when she said, in reply to a question at the Miss USA pageant, that she didn't think it should be legal.
Soon after, it was revealed she had recently got breast implants. But the biggest controversy erupted over recently-revealed nude photographs. "Up until now we have just been riding along pretty much a passenger on this runaway train.
But as of today, that ends," said Lewis. Prejean entered violated her contract, and hasn't been available for appearances, Lewis said.
Moakler said Prejean's failure to reveal the photos were out there to organizers shows she entered the pageant under false pretenses.
"For us the severity of nudity in the one photo that Carrie Prejean has admitted was hers is not the issue. The fact that she entered the pageant and admitted it, is," Moakler said. Lewis admitted that the gay marriage controversy is also a factor.
"Her message was dividing us rather than bringing us back together," he said.
He blasted the National Organization for Marriage for making 21-year-old Prejean, who spoke out against gay marriage in the Miss USA pageant, its poster girl and encouraging her to shirk her pageant responsibilities in favor of "polarizing" politics.
"Shame, shame, shame," he said. "Shame for doing it all the while knowing that you placed her in a position where she stood to possibly lose her crown not for her beliefs ...but for the breach of contract you so willingly encouraged."
The state pageant has been investigating whether the blonde bombshell violated her contract by making public appearances for the National Organization of Marriage that conflicted with pageant business.
Lewis and Moakler also revealed that they now have to go through non-pageant handlers to contact her and have been asked to provide special security for her at events. "We've never had that before: a beauty queen having to have a team of people protecting her in order to go out and create goodwill," he said.
"We've been pretty much hijacked, unable to do the work at hand." He said he'll support Trump's decision either way. Prejean was named first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant on April 19.
She became a YouTube sensation after she answered a question on gay marriage posed by guest judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay celebrity blogger.
"I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said.
BY:Nancy Dillon
DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF
