By Alex Dobuzinskis. Miss California, a Christian college student named Carrie Prejean, joined in a television ad campaign against gay marriage this week, upsetting homosexual rights advocates, including a head of the Miss California pageant. In the commercial from the National Organization for Marriage, Prejean is shown at the Miss USA competition last month where she answered a question about same-sex marriage by saying she opposed it, drawing both boos and cheers and setting off a raucous debate. She later said her view on marriage cost her the crown.

CNN -- Donald Trump will let Miss California USA Carrie Prejean keep her title despite controversy over seminude photos and charges by state pageant officials that she had abandoned her duties to devote time to opposition to same-sex marriage. Trump, no apprentice at turning a negative into positive publicity, brought several weeks of controversy to a conclusion at his New York headquarters Tuesday with winners all around. Trump said his Miss USA pageant stays "so relevant," unlike the rival Miss America pageant seen only on a small cable channel.

Contentious litigation between Prejean and the Miss California organization was settled in November Later that month, Prejean released a book relating the story from her point of view. Her mother is an Italian American, and her father is of French descent. In , Prejean's parents separated and subsequently started divorce proceedings. According to her autobiography, Prejean considered the divorce a "trauma that irrevocably shaped the rest of my life".