Carrie Prejean threatened to walk off Larry King Live Tuesday night, in the middle of her interview with Larry King. Prejean's threats came after King asked the former beauty queen about the reasons behind her recent settlement with the Miss California USA pageant. King asked Prejean why she agreed to strike a deal with the Pageant and drop her claims of libel, slander and religious discrimination. "Why settle since you had a fight to carry on?" King pressed. Prejean demurred. King asked again: "You can't even say why you settled?"
Prejean, visibly displeased, refused to answer: "Larry, it's completely confidential and you're being inappropriate."
The inappropriate issue at hand isn't King's probing question, but the alleged reason why Prejean settled: TMZ reported that she decided to strike a deal only after the lawyer for the Pageant revealed a home-made sex tape of a 17-year-old Prejean.
King: "So the agreement discusses the motive behind why each party agreed?"
Prejean: "Larry you're being inappropriate. You really are. So, I'm not going to talk about --"
(This back and forth goes on for a full minute.)
Finally, King concedes: "Okay, I, uh... inappropriate King Live continues." He drops the subject and goes to a caller. But the damage is done: before the person on the phone line is halfway through his introduction ("I'm a gay man and I love pageants"), Prejean reaches to disconnect her mic and mouths something to someone off camera.
"Did she hear the question?" King wonders.
No, she did not. "Yeah I think you are being extremely inappropriate right now, and I'm about to leave your show."
Watch it here:
According to Anderson Cooper's debrief following this high drama, Prejean says she refused to continue because "she was told she wouldn't have to take any calls from viewers."
"Bizarre," Cooper concluded.