The controversy over Miss California
Carrie Prejean was supposedto be settled last month when Miss USA
owner Donald Trump said she could stay, but less than a month later
she's out, FOXNews reported.
Prejean was fired on Wednesday by K2
Productions, the show's producers, citing continued breach of
contract issues.
“This was a decision based solely on
contract violations,” Keith Lewis, executive director of K2
Production, said in a statement. “After our [May 12] press
conference in New York we had hoped we would be able to forge a
better working relationship. However, since that time it has become
abundantly clear that Carrie has no desire to fulfill her obligations
under our contract and work together.”
Prejean became an overnight Christian
celebrity after she denounced gay marriage because of her religious
upbringing during the Miss USA contest two months ago and aligned
herself with Maggie Gallagher's anti-gay marriage group the National
Organization for Marriage (NOM).
More controversy followed when
semi-nude pictures of her surfaced on the Internet which suggested a
contract violation.
Trump brushed off the controversy;
calling her gay marriage question “honest” and the pictures
“fine,” he allowed her to keep her title.
But it was Trump that gave the OK to
fire Prejean: “I told Carrie she needed to get back to work and
honor her contract with the Miss California organization and I gave
her the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately it just doesn't look
like it is going to happen and I offered Keith [Lewis] my full
support in making this decision.”
Prejean decried the firing, saying
contest officials had always harbored resentment against her anti-gay
marriage views.
“They don't agree with the stance
that I took [on gay marriage],” she told gossip site TMZ.com.
“They don't like me. From day one they wanted me out and they go
what they wanted.”
NOM rushed to the beauty queen's
defense in a tersely worded release.
“Hollywood hates Carrie [Prejean].
First they abused her, then they try to get her to recant, then they
threw mud, and now they are doing what they wanted to do from day one:
Get rid of Carrie,” said Brian Brown, executive director of NOM.
“She's a young woman of great beauty who chose truth over the
glittering tiara that Hollywood offers. Of course they will try to
punish her, but we know she will be fine in the end, because her
values are in the right place.”
Miss California runner-up Tami Farrell
will be crowned the new Miss California.