YNOT — Dethroned Miss California USA Carrie Prejean may have based Tuesday’s settlement of dueling lawsuits that erupted after her fall from grace on the emergence of an “extremely graphic” solo sex tape, an unnamed source close to the litigation told CNN Wednesday.Prejean, who became equally notorious for the breast implants she received at pageant expense and her outspoken opposition to same-sex marriage, was stripped of her crown in June after pageant officials determined pre-existing pictures of her in lingerie constituted a breach of contract and cast the pageant in a bad light. Prejean sued, saying she was dethroned because her religious convictions conflicted with the image the pageant wanted to portray and therefore amounted to religious discrimination.
Pageant officials countersued, seeking the return of the $5,200 they claim to have spent on her breast implants and the proceeds from a tell-all book she wrote about her brief tenure. The book is expected to hit bookstores next week, and Prejean is scheduled to make a whirlwind promotional tour. Pageant officials claimed in their lawsuit the contract Prejean signed when she entered the contest gave the pageant rights to anything she wrote as a result.
Terms of the settlement are confidential, the CNN source said, but pageant spokesman Kenn Henmann told CNN the settlement ended the pageant’s claim on Prejean’s earnings. Henmann also said the pageant dropped its demand for repayment of the breast augmentation Prejean received before she represented California in the Miss USA competition.
For her part, Prejean withdrew her claim pageant officials violated her privacy by publicly confirming the existence of the implants, according to Henmann.
Celebrity gossip site TMZ stepped into the fray on Wednesday, announcing that during the summer it received a home video of Prejean engaged in solo sexual activity so “extremely graphic,” excerpts could not be posted online. CNN’s source confirmed the existence of the tape and indicated TMZ’s characterization of the subject matter was accurate.
Prejean, 22, has been a lightning rod for controversy since winning the Miss California USA title. First the rumor of breast augmentation was leaked and confirmed, causing some other contestants to cry “foul.” Evidently most of America believed contestants were required to be “all-natural,” but Prejean’s breasts provoked the revelation cosmetic enhancement is not uncommon.
Then Prejean elicited a major outcry among supporters of same-sex marriage when she answered a judge’s question during the Miss USA pageant with a firm denouncement of homosexuality as an abomination against God. The declaration came during a particularly sensitive time for Californians, who were embroiled in a bitter feud that eventually led to a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of heterosexuals only. The ballot initiative is now under review by the state’s high court.
Prejean finished the Miss USA competition as first runner-up, evidently fueling her enthusiasm for her viewpoint. Initially supportive, pageant officials could not back away fast enough after Prejean took every opportunity to speak out against same-sex marriage in public.
By the time a series of partially nude photos began to show up on websites, calling into question Prejean’s contractual fitness to retain her titles, pageant officials reportedly had grown weary of Prejean’s “belligerent” attitude, lack of cooperation and serial contract breaches and demanded Miss USA owner Donald Trump fire her. In June, he did.
Prejean filed her lawsuit in August. Pageant officials countersued in October.
