from www.tmz.com – Carrie Prejean is finally firing back at the people behind Miss California USA with a lawsuit — claiming Shanna Moakler and other pageant officials forced her out because of her religious beliefs.
Prejean just filed the suit in L.A. County Superior Court, accusing Moakler and pageant honcho Keith Lewis of religious discrimination, defamation, public disclosure of private facts, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Prejean was dethroned/fired from her post as Miss California USA back on June 10, nearly two months after she spoke out against gay marriage at the April 19th Miss USA competition.
Prejean claims the Miss Cali people “conspired to get rid of her” beginning on April 21st — when she said on the “Today” show that she would rather be “biblically correct than politically correct.”
Reps for Miss California USA — an organization owned by Donald Trump — have previously explained that Carrie was fired for missing appearances she was supposed to make for the organization and for not getting clearance to do extracurricular activities.
Donald Trump is NOT named in the suit.
But in her suit, Carrie says the Miss Cali USA people “fabricated a fraudulent list of some 50 public appearances allegedly missed by Prejean which they released to the media in order to justify her termination as Miss California USA.”
In the suit, Carrie claims officials also tried to “set up Prejean to have her dismissed as Miss California USA by asking her to do a Playboy photo shoot for $120,000.”
Calls to Moakler, Lewis and the Miss California USA organization have not yet been returned.
TMZ adds:TMZ just received the following statement from Miss California USA honcho Keith Lewis, lashing back at the lawsuit Carrie Prejean filed against him this morning for religious discrimination:
“It appears that suits from both sides are now inevitable against the other.
I would guess Carrie sees it as a chance to get publicity for her upcoming book because in the interviews I have seen, she talks about the suit and the book in the same breath.
We have no problem with her selling lots of books – considering in the current situation we could stand to profit from every copy she sells.
For us, it has never been about her beliefs and we have always just wanted to move on.
But it seems like Carrie really has nothing new to talk about or anything new in her life so the impression is she just keeps looking for ways to rehash her position as a victim because of her onstage answer.”