Miss California Could Lose Crown Because of Semi-Nude Photo

A topless photo of Miss California published yesterday (that's part of it, at the right) on the locally run gossip blog, "The Dirty," could be the tipping point for pageant officials who are considering taking away her crown. The officials are also ticked Carrie Prejean has been shilling for Jesus...

By Ray Stern

May 6, 2009

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A topless photo of Miss California published yesterday (that's part of it, at the right) on the locally run gossip blog, "The Dirty," could be the tipping point for pageant officials who are considering taking away her crown. The officials are also ticked Carrie Prejean has been shilling for Jesus and an anti-gay-marriage group in her spare time.

Gossip site guru Nik Richie, who was revealed to be California resident Hooman Karamian -- or is it Corbin Grimes? -- after getting busted for a DUI in Scottsdale last year. Karamian has scored with this one, pulling in hundreds of thousands of visitors to his site. We admit it -- we took a peek.

UPDATE: Celebrity gossip site TMZ claims to have received four more photos of a semi-nude Prejean in panties. The site's authors say they won't publish the pictures because Prejean says she was 17 when the first topless photo was taken.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.