Carrie, Those Belong to Us
Who ever imagined that an answer to a beauty pageant question could be so controversial? When Miss California Carrie Prejean stated her religious aversion to "opposite marriage" during the 2009 Miss USA contest, she not only ticked off the questioning judge — openly gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton — but also started a battle that would keep her in the limelight for a touch longer than her allotted 15 minutes.
Prejean finished as first runner-up in the pageant, but she seemed to revel more in being crowned the new anti–gay marriage mouthpiece, appearing on Larry King Live and in an ad for the National Organization for Marriage. But what really got the blonde into hot water was a set of modeling photos in which she was clad in skimpy lingerie. Miss USA pageant officials fired Prejean, calling the photos a breach of her contract. She sued, claiming religious discrimination. The organization then countersued, saying it wanted back $5,200 that Prejean had been given for breast-implant surgery. After about a month of to-and-fro, both lawsuits were suddenly settled — coincidentally at the same time that celebrity site TMZ reported that it had obtained a racy solo video of Prejean that was too hot to air.