Prejean Sued by ’Christian PR Firm’ for Alleged Non-Payment
Bible-toting beauty queen Carrie Prejean is back in the headlines as the defendant in a lawsuit brought by a "Christian-focused" public relations company that says Prejean contracted their services to promote the "Biblically correct message" that gay and lesbian families should be denied civil equality--but that Prejean never paid them for their work.
Prejean, a former Miss California USA title holder and contestant in last year's Miss USA pageant, became a darling of the anti-gay right after denouncing marriage equality on national television during the contest and then becoming a target for gay blogger Perez Hilton, who hurled an anti-woman slur at her on his video blog. The controversy that ensued swept Prejean into the embrace of the religious right, as she went on to make a commercial for the National Organization for Marriage (which opposes family parity for gays) and speak at a megachurch.
But all was not clear sailing as Prejean undertook a new career as a poster girl for the right. Prejean's employers, the organizers of the Miss USA pageant, fired her, claiming that she was not living up to her duties as the hold of the Miss California crown. Moreover, the pageant organizers said, semi-nude photos of Prejean, taken when she was a teenager, violated the terms of her contract when they surfaced in the media along with a purported sex tape. A man who said he was a former boyfriend of Prejean's alleged that Prejean had made numerous sex tapes, in which she appeared solo, for him--and also said that Prejean had asked him to lie on her behalf.
A sex video reportedly played a role when Prejean sought to sue her former employer for $1 million, only to settle for nothing--supposedly, once a lawyer from the other side showed her a copy of the rumored sex tape.
Throughout the media coverage, Prejean claimed she was being unfairly targeted for her anti-gay Christian views. Gossip site TMZ, which broke parts of the saga, reported on March 29 that Prejean has now been named in a lawsuit by "Christian-focused" public relations firm A. Larry Ross Communications. The suit alleges that Prejean hired the firm last April, but that she has yet to pay the bill, which totals $64,857.