Former Miss California Carrie Prejean
refused to take a gay caller's question Wednesday night on Larry
King Live, then threatened to walk out on the show.
The pair wrangled about a lawsuit
settlement before King put the caller on the line.
King asked Prejean, who was only
interested in peddling her just released book Still Standing,
why she settled a lawsuit against the Miss California USA Pageant.
“Why settle since you had a fight to
carry on?” King asked about the million-dollar lawsuit.
Prejean objected to the question,
calling it and King “inappropriate.”
King moved on to taking a caller's
question: “Hi, I'm calling from Detroit. I'm a gay man and I love
pageants. I'm sure that you, Carrie, have got, you know, great gay
friends that helped you possibly win. What would you give them as
advice if they wanted to get married?”
An awkward silence followed as Prejean
began speaking to someone off camera and removed her microphone.
“Did you hear the question, Carrie?” King asked, followed by,
“Who are you talking to?”
Finally, she answered: “Yeah, I think
you that you are being extremely inappropriate right now. And I'm
about to leave your show.”
Prejean's lawsuit against pageant
officials claimed religious discrimination and libel. It has been
widely speculated that she settled the suit after it emerged that she
had filmed a secret sex tape when she was a minor. The 22-year-old
has admitted to filming herself, telling Fox News: “It was
me by myself. There was no one else with me. I was not having sex.”
Prejean attained celebrity status among
conservative Christians after she denounced gay marriage because of
her religious upbringing during the Miss USA contest in April. She
said she lost the contest because of her answer, giving fodder to the
conservative argument that supporters of gay marriage punish
Christian opponents. A June release by the National Organization for
Marriage (NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay
marriage, said Prejean's “values are in the right place.”
In September, speaking at the Value
Voters Summit, she told a conservative audience that she was chosen
by God to oppose gay marriage. Reflecting on the controversy,
Prejean said, “I'm so proud of the answer that I gave. God chose
me for that moment.”
Prejean was scheduled to speak at the
Defenders of the Family, a fundraiser for the anti-gay group New
Jersey Family Policy Council, on November 6, but was mysteriously
removed from the event just one day prior.