Antigay Trump Fan Carrie Prejean Boller Is an Antimasker

Former Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean, who became infamous in 2009 with an oddly worded statement against marriage equality, is back in the news as an opponent of masks for COVID-19 prevention.

The onetime beauty queen, now Carrie Prejean Boller, went on an antimask rant at a recent meeting of the Encinitas, Calif., school board; it was captured on video and circulated on Twitter. Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned "Mama," she termed herself a "Mama Bear" and said she and other parents would be unmasking their children. "The pandemic is over," she declared.

Actually, it's not -- California reported 91,505 new cases in the past week and 618 deaths from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University, and other states are in much worse shape. But Boller claimed that masks are an infringement on freedom and even called mask mandates abusive. "We do not consent to the lies, fear-mongering, and abuse -- you all know it's abuse," she said. She told board members that she and like-minded people would be running for the school board and "make sure that none of you ever serve in a public space ever again!"

Boller has embraced many far-right views during her time in the public sphere, beginning with the 2009 Miss Universe pageant. She was representing California and was asked by pageant judge Perez Hilton, a gay man, if she supported same-sex couples' right to marry.

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," she said. "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised, and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman."

She received much blowback from LGBTQ+ rights activists but became a darling of conservatives, including the National Organization for Marriage, which fought a losing battle against marriage equality for years. The hard right even looked the other way when it emerged that she had made sexually explicit videos of herself to share with a boyfriend.

She is now married to former NFL quarterback Kyle Boller. She has been a major supporter of Donald Trump, claimed he actually won reelection as president last year, and praised him as a champion of so-called traditional values. But back in 2009, when she was trying to rehabilitate her reputation after the erotic videos were leaked, Trump said, "only half-jokingly," that "she should become a major porn star," gossip column Page Six reported at the time. Trump was then owner of the Miss Universe organization, which includes the Miss USA pageant.