The woman who would become Miss California if the current holder of that title is brought down by topless photos said there are no racy pictures in her closet.
“I’m sure in my baby book my parents have some pictures of me when I was a little girl. But, no, nothing crazy, nothing scandalous,” Tami Farrell laughed when TODAY’s Matt Lauer asked Tuesday if similar photos of her were floating around somewhere.
Donald Trump, who co-owns the Miss USA pageant with NBC, was to decide later Tuesday whether to give Miss California USA Carrie Prejean a second chance — or to strip her of her crown and award it to Farrell, who has been representing the California pageant as its “Beauty Ambassador.”
In The Donald’s handsTrump is famous for firing people, but he’s showed a merciful side with his pageant queens. Three years ago, when then-Miss USA Tara Conner was revealed to be sneaking out at night to party, drink and use cocaine, Trump gave her a second chance. After a stint in rehab, Conner, who had confessed to her indiscretions and begged forgiveness, came back to finish out her reign.
In her exclusive interview with Lauer, Farrell said she’s not qualified to judge Prejean. “I don’t have all the facts. There’s two sides to every story, so I wouldn’t be a fair judge,” she said.
But she also said that Conner’s situation was different from Prejean’s.
Of Conner, she said, “I think it was that she admitted it from the beginning. She said, ‘Listen, I have a problem. I want to apologize for this.’ What’s been going on right now is, Carrie, she has denied these photos and they have continued to surface, and then she’s going on and campaigning for these different organizations that aren’t affiliated with the Miss USA organization. So there’s so many things going on. Hopefully, if the decision is made that she keeps her title, she can come back to her state of California and just do her job.”
Controversial Carrie
Farrell was the first runner-up in the Miss California USA pageant late last year to Prejean, who went on to finish second in the Miss USA contest last month. Prejean ignited a firestorm of controversy when she told judge Perez Hilton that she believed that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
The openly gay Hilton lashed out at Prejean on his Web site, while the beauty queen was greeted as a hero at her evangelical megachurch in suburban San Diego. More recently, Prejean told James Dobson of Focus on the Family that Hilton’s question about gay marriage was the work of the devil.
“I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question,” she said on Dobson’s radio show.“And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, ‘Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people ... you need to witness to them and you need to show that you’re not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA.’ ”
That controversy over her pageant statement was still raging when the Web site thedirty.com posted a racy photo of Prejean wearing pink panties and a smile. Prejean, who had become a spokeswoman for traditional marriage for the National Organization for Marriage, said the picture was taken for a modeling shoot when she was 17. She said just one picture existed.
But then the gossip site posted another picture, saying it had more, and other sources came out saying that Prejean was over 18 when she took the shots. Then, on Monday, another gossip site, TMZ.com, posted more pictures of Prejean, this time from the front and topless.
Renegade beauty?Miss California officials say that Prejean has been spending her time advocating against same-sex marriage and has not been fulfilling her duties as Miss California. To fill the gap, they created the title Beauty Ambassador for Farrell and have called on her to make the public appearances that the state pageant winner normally makes.
Farrell noted that pageant contestants sign a contract that obliges them to reveal whether they’ve ever posed for nude or partially nude photos. They also have to promise not to represent other organizations while representing their state. Prejean’s detractors say she’s done neither.
“There is a specific box that you’re supposed to check yes or no, and she checked no,” Farrell told Lauer. “I think if anything, had she checked that box, they probably could have helped prevent this coming out .... If she disclosed it from the beginning, there wouldn’t be all this controversy.”
Farrell said that it comes down in her mind to the contract she and Prejean signed. “She was bound by a contractual obligation to the Miss California and the Miss USA organization, and hopefully that’s what the decision is based upon,” she said.
Lauer asked Farrell if she thinks it’s all about the same-sex marriage stance.
“I think that people are going to view it that way, and I think definitely that’s what the attention is going to be focused on with the media, because obviously, it’s a controversial question and answer,” Farrell replied. “But I think at the end of the day, if she had won Miss USA, maybe she never received that question — and she was not showing up to work and she had these pictures, it would still be that sort of controversy.”