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

by Carrie Prejean

  Miss Alabama’s eyes swam around.

  “Besides me?” she said. “Uh, I like Arkansas. She’s sweet.”

  “I don’t care if she’s sweet,” Donald Trump said. “Is she hot?

  Miss Alabama shrugged, not sure how to answer. “Yes?”

  He called up Miss Arkansas, and asked her the same thing. In this way, Donald Trump made his way through all the girls. As he did, he motioned those girls he liked over to one side, leaving the discards to one side of the stage. I was one of the survivors. Then he stopped, stood, looked us over, and smiled. It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not.

  Many of the girls found this exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress “The Donald.” Most of us respected Donald Trump as an amazing businessman and leader—and certainly I still do. But we naturally felt sorry for the girls who were left in the “reject” line. Even those of us who were among the chosen couldn’t feel very good about it—it was as though we had been stripped bare.

  Having survived the preliminary competitions—the official ones, not just the Donald Trump division of the hot from the not—I steeled myself for the big event, the national audience, the blinding lights, the cameras, and everything else that goes into the Miss USA Pageant. This was it—this was where the long nights in the gym, the two-a-day workouts, the study questions I had prepared for myself, and all the other training I had done would pay off if I won; and I was confident not only that I could win, but that I would make California proud, that I could bring the crown home to our state. As the announcers cried out their opening lines and the music swelled, I looked out from the stage and saw our ultimate panel of judges for the first time.

  I expected that our judges in the televised show would be athletes and TV celebrities who could help with the ratings of this NBC event. Earlier that week, I had heard a rumor that Paris Hilton was going to be a judge. What would Paris Hilton ask me? Did I have a Chihuahua? All the girls were talking about this. What has Paris Hilton done that would make her an appropriate judge for Miss USA?

  We were given an ice-breaker question so that we could get to know the panel a little and they could get to know us. Mine was about basketball. No question could have been easier for me—in fact, I can happily say, it was a slam dunk! During a commercial break one of the makeup artists told me, “It’s going to be you!” But with all that good news, there was some worrying news too. Paris Hilton was not a judge after all. The judge was a man. His name is Mario Armando Lavandeira. He styles himself “Perez Hilton,” “queen of all media,” and he blogs about celebrities. His specialty is crude, child-like, superimposed drawings—usually a hand-drawn male sex organ—over the mouths of people he doesn’t like. It took awhile to absorb this information: we were going to be judged by a purveyor of Hollywood sleaze. I couldn’t help wondering if he had been using his internet skills to dredge up unflattering information about all of us, organized in individual computerized files. We found out that another judge was Holly Madison, a Playboy model and formerly Hugh Hefner’s main girlfriend in a reality TV show. She had no pageant experience that I knew of, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking that a woman who was “famous” for being a member of an elderly man’s harem was not the best sort of judge for a girl to represent Miss USA. But contestants don’t get to choose their judges. An MSNBC reporter was a judge, and I thought that was okay—NBC was in partnership with Mr. Trump and the Miss USA organization. Two other judges were Claudia Jordan, a former Miss Rhode Island, and Kelly Monaco of Dancing with the Stars fame. Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son, was a judge too.

  As one of the top fifteen contestants—six of us personally picked by Donald Trump—I first went into the swimsuit competition. It always feels a little creepy walking across a stage with just enough fabric to be legal. I did it and survived. That narrowed us down to ten girls. Next, we had to model our evening gowns. That brought us down now to five girls, and I was still in.

  We entered the question round. I listened closely as other contestants answered their questions, trying to gauge what might be asked of me.

  Some of the questions were tough. For example, Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton, was asked about bank bailouts. She answered the question with finesse. Miss Arizona was asked about healthcare. She described it as a matter of integrity. Her answer was really a non-answer—a bit too politically correct to carry any real weight.

  In giving answers to pageant questions, Pam Wilson had always taught me never to forget where I came from. “Always remember what your parents taught you,” she said. “Relate it to who you are, to the scenarios in your life. Think about how it relates to you, what you would like to see. Don’t be too judgmental. Take a side, but acknowledge and show respect for other people.”

  While driving to Las Vegas two weeks before, I had gone over about 500 questions with my Mom. I felt prepared for just about anything—and my confidence had soared after the first round warm-up question about my basketball scholarship. I had nailed it. I was set to nail it again.

  I felt ready, I had worked hard to be ready, and when Billy Bush called me forward I walked across the stage brimming with a nticipation. I reached into the fishbowl and pulled out the card with my questioner’s name. My nerves jumped a bit, though, when Billy Bush announced my questioner would be Perez Hilton. It didn’t help when Nadine Velasquez said, “Are we worried?” and Hilton answered, “You should be.”

  Then came his question. There was something about his body language that seemed to want to enforce agreement, as if there were no other choices. Outwardly, I was all smiles. Inside, I was all turmoil, instantly thinking, Why me? Of all questions, why this one? How am I going to answer?

  I paused to gather myself. I looked directly at Perez Hilton, taking stock of his spiky blond hair and lime green jacket. Following Pam Wilson’s advice, I acknowledged him. I spoke about the rights of states to legalize it if they want to. In fact, I was well on my way to sounding pro-gay marriage, almost as if all the falsity around me was leading me to give a politically correct answer. But I knew what I believed, and I knew what I had to say, and I knew I was representing California, the state that had just passed Proposition 8. I finally had to answer for real. I said that I thought that marriage was between a man and a woman, and that was what I had been raised to believe. For a minute, time froze. I saw my parents, my relatives and friends, and my sister all in the audience. I saw Donald sitting right in the front row, and I asked myself, How does this question relate to me? How do I really feel about this? Do not give in and give the “world peace” kind of answer, Carrie; tell the truth. The longer I spoke, the more the basketball chick in me came out. I thought I finished really strong, and I smiled at Perez Hilton.

  To dead silence.

  I remember Perez looking at me, looking at the judges, and then looking away from us all. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me, or even look in my vicinity, for the rest of the night. I remember going back into my row of girls and turning to Miss Kentucky and saying, “Oh my gosh, what did I just say?”

  She spoke to me between the gritted teeth of a forced smile, “You did the right thing.” I felt so grateful for those kind words.

  Miss Utah also tried to cheer me up.

  “Just smile and look pretty,” she whispered.

  Mercifully, we soon went to a commercial break. As soon as the break was announced, I saw Perez leap up and begin to speak to the other judges. The commercial was over and the time had come to pick a winner.

  They got down to the last two, and to my astonishment I was still standing.

  I held hands with Miss North Carolina. Then they said that the first runner-up was California. I gave my most gracious smile and did what every runner-up knows to do—get off the stage.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wa
s It Something I Said?

  The other girls began to react to what had transpired between Perez and me as soon as the lights went down. Miss Vermont later told FOX News, “A lot of people were shocked. We were all kind of giving each other those eyes. We couldn’t believe it.”

  As soon as I got back to the tent behind the stage to change, someone shouted, “California, Access Hollywood wants to interview you.”

  “Why me? I didn’t win.”

  As I walked back and put my flowers down, I felt all eyes on me, which was strange because I wasn’t the winner, but there was this sort of buzz in the air, and it seemed to be buzzing around me. Part of it was that many of the house moms, who looked after the girls at the pageant, were coming up to me and whispering that I did the right thing in standing up for traditional marriage; they told me they were proud of me. I appreciated their kind words, but really my primary thought, after the letdown of losing, was to get out of this tight gown, take off all my makeup, eat a cheeseburger, and just go home and recover from the stress and strain of the last three weeks—weeks in which I had not seen my family, except in the audience.

  I also wanted to get to a private room, turn on a computer or TV, and see what I had said. When you give a response under so much pressure, your memory of your own words isn’t terribly reliable. I really couldn’t remember my full answer. While I thought I had answered honestly and well, I no longer felt sure, and I wanted to see the tape and judge my performance. Given the reaction from the judges, I worried that I might have said something that I had not meant to say. Was it possible that I had said something truly awful?

  Billy Bush had came up to me and said, “I just want to thank you for standing up and giving an answer . . . you’re the only one of the final five I thought who gave an answer.” He told me he was on his twitter account, tweeting his support for me.

  I thanked him.

  Then I heard someone shout a warning at me.

  “Watch out!” one of the studio aides yelled, “Someone’s here to hurt you!” Several girls bunched up protectively around me. I was told a fight had broken out in the lobby after someone ripped a picture of me from one of my supporters and tore it to pieces.

  As the fear from that moment subsided, I started to get angry at fate for letting me get that question of all questions. My confusion over my answer deepened, because I still couldn’t really remember it. Had I gone on and rambled like a former contestant once did, earning herself eternal YouTube stardom?

  I looked around the tent. None of the production staff from NBC—people who had joked around with me before—said a word to me or even looked my way. Keith and Shanna were nowhere to be seen. People started packing up their things and leaving.

  The evening, however, was far from over. After the televised event, Paula Shugart of the Miss Universe organization always holds a coronation ball. It is meant to be a celebration for all the contestants, not just a celebration for the winner; it’s a way to mark this special evening in one’s life, to say goodbye to friends, to get past the contest. As first-runner-up, I also felt I needed to go to show my respect for the winner, Kristen Dalton of North Carolina. I wanted to go to say goodbye to the girls I had lived with for three weeks, especially Aureana. I didn’t want anyone to imagine I was a sore loser. My parents were with me, tickets in hand, when I received a text from Keith telling me not to come—a lot of people are mad at you, I’m afraid of what might happen to you. You really shouldn’t come.

  I later heard from a friend who had seen Keith and Shanna in the lobby. Just before they angrily stormed out of the building, Shanna announced, “We told her not to talk about God! We told her not to talk about her faith!” This astonished me. I suppose my faith informed my answer, but what else could I have said? And shouldn’t my pageant directors have been defending me?

  I asked again. “Is that what Shanna really said?” My friend said, “Yes.”

  Excluded from the final event of the evening, my parents and I wandered around the empty corridors of Planet Hollywood. Exiled from the coronation ball, we found our way to a fast food café in the hotel. While everyone else was partying and celebrating, the first runner-up was in a little plastic chair eating greasy hamburgers with her family and friends.

  Looking back now, I realize I had been too timid. I had the tickets. I should have gone to the ball, head held high. I should never have let Keith talk me out of going. But I was still in shock. And again, I couldn’t remember exactly what I had said. For about the millionth time that evening, I winced at the possibility that I had misspoken and said something so awful I wasn’t welcome at the coronation ball. How else to explain the widespread reaction against me?

  I needed to get away from all this drama and hear my answer. I went up to my room. Miss Hawaii had already packed up and gone. I searched YouTube and saw my name instantly pop up—all over the internet. With apprehension, I clicked on the video and listened to myself over and over again.

  I weighed my words, I analyzed them from every angle I could imagine—and then I decided I hadn’t said anything wrong. I had tried to give a balanced, fair, and honest answer. I had done nothing to offend, I had merely (and I thought politely) upheld the traditional definition of marriage agreed to by the majority of my fellow Californians, and certainly the majority of Americans. What, then, was all the fuss about?

  Later, in an interview, Donald Trump said of my answer: “It probably did cost her the crown. In that, well, I don’t know that. . . . But I assume Perez probably gave her a pretty low vote and that would have brought her average down.” Former Miss Rhode Island Claudia Jordan saw a lesson-learned in my answer: “In pageants, just like in politics, it’s probably best to give a neutral answer where you’re not committed to one side or another, if you want to win.”

  Claudia Jordan also said the judges were “bothered” by my answer. In fact, Perez didn’t just give me a low vote. He reportedly said he gave me a “zero” vote. That I could sustain a zero vote from one judge, and very low marks from others, and still come in as first-runner-up left me with no doubt about how much my answer had cost me. As if to drive home the point, another judge, former Miss Nevada Alicia Jacobs, wrote on her blog: “If I could have made her fifty-first runner-up, I would have.”

  In a blog item titled “Pretty is as Pretty Does,” Jacobs offers a behind-the-scenes account of the thinking of the judges and pageant officials. Here is her reaction to me:As she continued to speak, I saw the crown move further & further away from her. When she finished, she looked strangely proud for a moment. Personally, I was STUNNED on several levels. First, how could this young woman NOT know her audience and judges? Let’s not forget that the person asking the question is an openly gay man, at least two people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS, is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers . . . in many ways. (Two ways in particular . . . if you get my drift??) Did I mention I was STUNNED?

  Yes, Alicia, you did. And in case anyone didn’t get her drift, the “two ways” are a reference to my breast implants.

  The hatred was only beginning to pour.

  Perez Hilton immediately posted a ranting video blog that ricocheted around the world: “She gave the worst answer in pageant history. . . . Miss California lost because she’s a DUMB BITCH, okay?”

  He said, “If that girl would have won Miss USA I would have gone up on stage, I s**t you not, I would have gone up on stage and snatched that tiara off her head and run out of the door and then I’d probably have been arrested. But you know what? So be it.”

  Later, Perez told MSNBC in an interview, “I don’t apologize. . . . Over the course of the past twenty-four hours, the more I’ve thought about it, the more—you know what?—No, I’m going to stand by what I said just like she’s standing by what she said. And I called her the B-word, and hey, I was thinking the C-word.”

  He didn’t mean Christ
ian, Californian, or Carrie.

  Soon after that, Perez Hilton began to post sexually obscene, offensive drawings over photos of my face. And this is the mature “expert” selected to judge the character, poise, and beauty of young women competing for the title of Miss USA!

  As shocking as all of this was, I was even more shocked that I was receiving no communications or support from my pageant directors. Hearing nothing from Keith and Shanna personally, I did come across their public statements of support . . . for Perez Hilton.

  “As co-executive director of Miss CA USA and one of the leaders of the Miss CA family,” Keith wrote to Perez Hilton, “I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman.”

  He added: “Although I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit, I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone. Religious beliefs have no place in politics in the Miss CA family.”

  When I later heard this statement, I remember scratching my head at the last part. Religious beliefs have no place in politics? But politics has a place in the Miss California “family”—as long as it is religion-free?

  And since when was the Miss California pageant a “family”? That word was getting tossed around far too easily. I know what a family is, and it’s not a beauty pageant, and Keith and Shanna were certainly not my father or my mother or anything close to that. When pageants and other groups appropriate the name of “family,” you know they’re abusing that word. Here they were using it to imply that they were loving and inclusive—so loving and inclusive that they were booting me out of the “family.”

  To his credit, Keith did explain to the media that I was often a ttended to by gay beauty experts, and that he knew me to be friendly to them and to him. True enough. I was grateful to get that out on the record.

  Nevertheless, I still didn’t hear from Keith or Shanna; they were too busy broadcasting apologies.