Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks

by Carrie Prejean

  My older brother, Billy Arnone, showed me the value of independence, and how to survive by setting a goal and making it on your own. He has been riding dirt bikes since he was five years old, and is now a professional dirt bike rider, doing what he loves best. The media went after him when I came under fire, even labeling him as a racist (based solely on his appearance: short hair and tattoos). But Billy is a good guy and has always been very supportive of me. I never knew him well, since he is a good bit older than I am, but I have always loved and respected him. He is a strong, independent man who has been making it on his own since he was eighteen years old.

  I especially remember my mother always being at home for us kids. She played a huge role in my upbringing, being a stay-at-home mom for over twenty years. Hers was literally a 24/7 job—picking us up from school, feeding us, clothing us, bathing us, and especially as we grew older spending time with us, listening to us, answering our questions, molding our characters. In fact, I never had a babysitter. While dad traveled, supporting our family, mom would stay with us. I owe so much to her.

  I was also very much a daddy’s girl. I would wait for him to come home from work at night and then run out to meet him. He read us bedtime stories whenever he was at home, and always encouraged us to say our prayers.

  It was wonderful growing up in my family, side-by-side with my siblings. Chrissy in particular has been my best friend and soul sister. But we almost didn’t grow up together at all.

  When I was two years old, my parents went out shopping at the day-after New Year’s sales, leaving Chrissy and me at home under my grandparents’ supervision. I remember seeing a bunch of pink pills left out on the counter. I also remember Chrissy saying, “Sissy, look, they’re candy, and they’re your favorite color.” She dared me to eat some. I went a step further, taking several bunches and swallowing them whole. Chrissy took some, but didn’t like the taste and spat them out.

  They were my grandfather’s pills for his high blood pressure. And I had a stomach full of them.

  Several hours later, after I had been put down for a nap, my grandmother tried—and failed—to wake me. Of course this frightened her, but she did not know what to do. Fortunately, an aunt of mine who had come by had the presence of mind to see that something was seriously wrong. She searched around the house, saw the pills on the floor, and called 911.

  At the hospital, the physicians told my parents that after pumping my stomach, there was nothing else they could do. I was in a coma. There was, they said, no antidote for what I had taken. My parents, grandparents, cousins, distant relatives—the entire family came to the hospital. I remember Grandpa telling me he got on his knees, sobbing and asking God not to let me die. My parents prayed over me, begging the Lord to give me the chance to live. It was an emotional day for my family. But after twenty-four hours, I opened my eyes and slowly came out of the coma. As deeply traumatic as those days were for my parents, I was far too young to remember much about them.

  But I do vividly remember the trauma at age eight that irrevocably shaped the rest of my life. For years, my parents had argued. I can’t say their arguing bothered me much as a child, because they did it so often that I merely thought it was something that all married people did. Kids have their own defense mechanisms, and mine protected me to the point that I considered myself happy and my home normal. My parents’ divorce changed all that. It set off a custody battle that went on for almost ten years. The irony of it was that we were practically grown when it was all over. It was a very ugly process, with harsh recriminations and charges thrown from one parent to the other. (Later, when I became a hate figure for the cultural left, my parents’ divorce records were found and exploited as a way to try to embarrass me.)

  Today, divorce might sound like a commonplace life event, and you might think it was especially common in California in the late 1980s and early 1990s; but in our community, divorce was rare. I had only one friend in school, Jennifer, whose parents had divorced. Jennifer and Chrissy were the only girls I knew who could relate to me, who knew what it was like to hear parents try to enlist their children to take sides, who knew what it was like to live in two homes, to have two closets and two beds, or two Christmases and two Thanksgivings every year.

  This happened, as I tell my parents today, because they were being selfish. They do not disagree with me. The good news is that, however bitter and tragic their divorce, they’ve grown through it; they now get along just fine, and they have become tremendously loving and supportive parents. In fact, I couldn’t have made it through the ordeal I faced as Miss California if I hadn’t had my Mom and Dad by my side. And to be by me, they had to be by each other. But in my youth, it was a very different story. The divorce put distance between me and my parents, even as it intensified my relationship with my sister. I also had to grow up fast and learn to do things on my own.

  I got a little unwanted kick in that direction from a judge. Caught between two wrangling parents, the court appointed an attorney for my sister and me to find out which parent we really wanted to live with—and which parent would actually be the best for us to live with. Looking back, perhaps I can see some logic behind the court’s action. Still, it might have made more sense for the court to use a child psychiatrist or a family counselor to find out what living arrangement would be best for us.

  But we were not assigned a child psychiatrist or a family counselor. The court appointed a lawyer—a harsh, aggressive woman—who would sit Chrissy and me in front of her desk in her downtown office while she paced around and discussed legal concepts in language no 8-year-old could possibly understand.

  One thing did come through, however, loud and clear.

  “You can’t have your own voice,” the lawyer said. “That’s why you need to keep meeting with me once a week. Only then can I go to the court and speak for you.” She would stare us down with her large, cold eyes, trying to silence us. Then the lawyer would engage us in long conversations meant to tease out some telling fact that would allow her to determine which parent should raise us.

  At the end of it all, nothing was accomplished, except that all the money my parents would have spent on our college educations went into the hands of lawyers.

  In the midst of all this complication and heartache, I was still a child. I yearned for structure. I needed a sense of belonging. I wanted a place to pour out all my frustration and work off all my sadness.

  My sister and I found that place in sports.

  My parents had put me in softball and basketball when I was little. I remember my love of sports began when I was five years old, watching my brother play all stars for little league baseball. Dad coached Billy, who was an amazing athlete. Seeing him play, I knew I wanted to be out there on the field some day. My sister and I were always running around, chasing foul balls. Softball became my life for a long time. When I was a freshman in high school, our team went on to win the national championship in Spokane, Washington. While I was still in middle school, however, I discovered that I had a new passion, one that was better suited to a tall girl like me: basketball.

  During high school, I was a four-sport athlete—track (I ran cross country), one season on the women’s golf team, more softball, but above all, basketball. I played guard/forward and soon became our team’s leading three-point shooter. I was on the team for all four years of high school and started every game (and I’ve got the scars to prove it). I would eventually start looking at colleges where I could play.

  Chrissy was also on my team. She had my back and I had hers. In one critical match against Fallbrook High School, she and I managed to win the game for Vista with five three-point shots. I was on fire that night. And it is still one of the best memories of my life. I proved to myself what I could do when I pursued a passion, body and soul.

  I was active in student politics, as well. In my sophomore year, I ran for athletic chairperson and won. In my junior and senior year, I ran for associated student body president, and won again, both
times. Apathy was not a problem for me—I liked being involved in school activities and being a leader, and I understood the value of keeping busy. High School is when a lot of kids start making bad decisions, and I was fortunate in being able to steer myself away from a lot of choices I might later regret. Being so active in sports and leadership activities helped; so did my own desire to maintain a good reputation; and it didn’t hurt to have a slightly older sister looking after me. Most of all, I had a strong foundation in my faith, especially through my involvement with Christian Club and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

  Even through the turmoil of their divorce, my parents had encouraged my Christian faith and kept me going to church. I had decided at a very early age to give my heart to Jesus, and he became my rock, quite literally my salvation. I went to a small church in Vista for most of my life, and while my relationship with Jesus deepened in high school, it blossomed even further when I was eighteen. At that time, some of my friends and I gravitated toward the ministry of a former defensive back for the San Diego Chargers, Miles McPherson, and his church, which he called The Rock. The first few times I attended, it was a humble ministry (at least compared to what it is today) meeting in Montezuma Hall at San Diego State. The church had 3,000 members, but relied on folding chairs for about a third of those who came, and at the end of the evening service, we had to stack all the chairs against the wall. I didn’t meet Miles then, but he and his congregation, now one of the largest churches in San Diego, would eventually live up to their name for me, supporting me, standing up for me, being my rock, when the storm fell upon me later.

  As a committed Christian, I cared a lot about my reputation as a leader in high school—not because I was worried about being cool or even being liked. I didn’t want to be seen as that girl who said she was a Christian and then didn’t act like one. I didn’t want to be the hypocrite who went to church on Sunday, but got drunk or stoned on the weekend; who would hang out with the “cool” or popular crowd and try to capitalize on her youth and good looks; and who let herself be driven by peer pressure to do things she’d later regret. I didn’t want this, because I knew that kind of behavior was not what Christ wanted me to model for my peers.

  Some might have called me a prude, but I think most people got who I was. They respected me for my athleticism and for being solid in my identity. They knew I was dedicated to what I was doing and saw how organized I was. I was very cautious in choosing my friends. I dated, but my boyfriends were few. I didn’t run with the popular “cool” crowd; I would hang out with my fellow athletes; but if I didn’t seek to be the most popular girl on campus, I wasn’t a loner either, and I had enough respect from my peers to be successful in student politics. Being president of the associated student body kept me focused on being organized, keeping up my grades, and acting as a role model to my fellow students. My lunches were often taken up with holding meetings.

  Unlike my sister though, who was Student of the Year, excelling in academics and at sports, I wasn’t so gifted when it came to academics. I got by with some Cs and a lot of Bs. But in one respect, we were exactly alike: Chrissy was never one to let people push her around or walk all over her.

  I had another anchor in my early life, Frank Coppola, my grandfather.

  After the divorce, Mom, Chrissy, and I moved from house to house. But we always lived close to my grandparents. At one point, we lived in a mobile home in the same mobile home park as my grandparents, and I saw a lot of Grandpa and Grandma.

  Grandma still knows how to enjoy life. She is healthy and lively as ever at ninety. I remember when I was a little she would always be at home cooking for us. Grandma and Grandpa were married for sixty-four years. I always looked to their marriage as my model: long-lasting and filled with laughter.

  Grandpa was a character, a mix of whimsical humor and “Old School” propriety.

  Everyone loved him. He rode his little blue Datsun truck to every game Chrissy and I played. He never missed one. And every time Grandpa appeared, he was dressed in trousers, a dress shirt, and a tie. He was also never without his “Italian hat,” a cap with a feather in it. Frank Coppola was always in the stands, talking to everyone and watching every minute of the game, joking with the parents of the other girls, jumping up for a hooray when one of us scored. No one was surprised when Frank Coppola was singled out for an award as “fan of the year.”

  At times he was like a second dad to me. Grandpa was always pulling me aside to say encouraging things. “You’re going places, girl,” he would say. “You’re special.” He loved to brag about me, or to say, “I told you so” after a winning basketball game. At my grandpa’s funeral I wrote a letter to him, thanking him for teaching me so much about life and how precious it is.

  Grandpa taught me the importance of family and tradition. He refused to watch movies, because he insisted that Hollywood was corrupt. But he loved Frank Sinatra, and would often brag about the time he met him and shook his hand. Whenever we listened to Sinatra together, Grandpa would say to me, “Now that’s music, Care.”

  He was proud of being Italian—a pride he instilled in my mother, my sister, and me. He was proudest of all to be an American.

  The cheerful look my grandfather wore in public faded into a grimace whenever he showed us his Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He told me that his parents had come across to Ellis Island from Italy when they were in their thirties, knowing almost no English. Their son ventured back across the Atlantic as a rifleman in Patton’s 87th Infantry.

  A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, my grandfather would weep when his mind took him back into the battlefield, and he thought about all the friends he had left behind. He’d pull out his handkerchief, wipe his eyes, blow his nose, and say, “Carrie, I slept in trenches. It was so cold. I missed my family. I suffered and fought for your freedom. So d on’t ever—ever—ever let anyone take that freedom from you.”

  He said something else I never forgot.

  “We had a lot of loudmouth atheists in our platoon,” he said. “But on the frontline, when the bullets were zinging, the atheists would drop to their knees and pray.” No matter how many times he told this story, Grandpa always cried when he got to this part. “They believed in God as much as I did when we were being shot at.”

  Grandpa was a handyman, who kept busy doing odd projects. He really taught me the value of hard work. Every morning he would go to McDonalds and grab his 50 cent coffee before coming to our house (which was a few houses away from his), always seeking another task that needed to be completed. He was so active—that’s what kept him young. He got a call one morning at seven o’clock to fix the garbage disposal for a couple he had known for twenty-five years. He was happy to oblige. Frank Coppola had always said he wanted to die working—and that’s just what he did. And when he died, I felt that I had lost a father.

  After high school, I wanted my own place. As so many young people do, at least in theory, I wanted to be independent, to do my own thing, to live life as I wanted to live it. So I moved to Santa Barbara, where I attended Santa Barbara City College. My sister was nearby, studying on an Air Force ROTC scholarship at Westmont, a Christian liberal arts college. But when I wasn’t visiting Chrissy, I felt very lonely.

  Santa Barbara is a beautiful place, with sea fog, redwoods, and Spanish-style homes from the 1920s. I lived right on the beach and was within walking distance of my school. Somehow, though, all that beauty only added a touch of irony to what I felt inside. To all outward appearances, I was in paradise, but I was also the loneliest I have ever been in my life.

  The reason for my loneliness was that I could not find a place to fit in. Even though I wasn’t the best student, I was eager to learn, and I was naïve enough to think that college would be about being introduced to important ideas and books, and that my fellow students would be idealistic and high-minded, but I didn’t find that to be true. The social scene created by my fellow students centered on weekend-binge-drinking, doing drugs, and sleeping aro
und—which wasn’t my scene at all. It struck me as a slow, lazy way to waste one’s youth. Slacker has never been my style.

  I took a break from school and returned to a northern San Diego suburb to be close to each of my divorced parents. If moving to Santa Barbara had been a mistake, moving back to San Diego proved to be a blessing. Here, I found community in a church (The Rock) that had hundreds of young people who felt as I did.

  The relatively humble, chair-stacking ministry Miles had begun a few years before at San Diego State had exploded into a small city. The Rock was now a so-called “mega-church” with enormous spaces and 12,000 worshipers a week. I found more and more of my social life revolving around my friends and fellow worshipers at The Rock.

  As the child of divorce, I sometimes felt that I had raised myself. But that really wasn’t true, for I was parented and matured by my faith—the same faith that brought my parents back together into a new relationship focused on their daughters. And it was faith that helped me reorient my educational goals. A small local college, San Diego Christian College, offered me a basketball scholarship, and soon I was back to working on earning a college degree.

  I got involved in two ministries at my church. One of them, “Luv-Em-Up,” is a ministry for helping people with developmental and physical challenges. This ministry has had such a profound impact on me that it has opened up a possible career path to which I could happily devote my life. I love sports, and while I would love to be a sports reporter, I also love children, especially children with special needs. These two loves come together in the Special Olympics, an organization that is dear to my heart. This world really opened up to me when I got involved with Luv-Em-Up. This ministry assists disabled people of all ages in developing their own faith and knowledge of the Bible, while helping them bring their gifts to the world. There can be few better testaments to the faith we hold than witnessing the inherent human dignity of those among us who are the most challenged mentally and physically; there are few rewards that can mean so much as seeing the results and the joy in helping disabled people, and kids especially, achieve their goals.