Valley PR Blog

Larry King and Carrie Prejean – what a mess of an interview!

By Linda VandeVrede on November 13th, 2009 In Hype!, Media

Did you see the Larry King interview of Carrie Prejean this week?   I squirm for both the interviewer and the interviewee everytime I watch it.   Here’s the clip from YouTube.  Ouch.   Bad ju-ju on both sides.  

Didn’t see it?   Larry asked Carrie (former Miss USA contestant and Miss California who became famous for her anti- gay marriage comment) about the terms of the settlement.   What followed was a truly bizarre example of bad responses on both Larry’s part and Carrie’s part.   Carrie was acting like a petulant teenager and taking her mike off, to leave the show, and Larry was doggedly persisting with his line of questioning.   Hello?  

I asked local media training expert Kathy Kerchner what her opinion was of the clip.

Carrie Prejean went on Larry King’s show simply to push her new book (”Still Standing”). Unfortunately, the man who usually rolls over for celebrities turned into Chris Matthews and began throwing hardballs.

Carrie was right to not answer King’s questions about her settlement, but she did it “inappropriately.” Instead of continuing to label his questions in that wimpy way, after the second or third time he asked, she should have bluntly stated, “Larry, no matter how many times you ask that question I’m not going to answer it and I can’t answer it because of legal issues. If you have any other things you’d like to talk about, that would be great. Otherwise, we might as well end the interview now.”

I read some reports that she also had an agreement that King would not take any phone calls during her interview and that was what she was really upset about. If that was the case, once he took the call, she should have said, “Larry, I apologize to your caller, but as you know we agreed before the show that we wouldn’t have any outside questions so we could focus on the issues I discussed in my book.”

I asked another media training pro his opinion of the incident, and here’s his response, to give the male perspective:

I’m almost speechless.  That thing bears no resemblance to any real world scenario to which I can relate.  And then my mind jumps quickly to the bottom line of the event; namely, that Carrie Prejean (or maybe it’s her publicist) is far more powerful than Larry King.

Both sides were completely unprofessional from the start.  And I can’t imagine advising any client to put him or herself in either situation.

Given his power and worldwide reach, I don’t see why Larry would agree to not take callers.  But it’s even worse that his staff did, didn’t tell him, AND THEN allowed a caller to actually get on the air. 

Carrie herself would have no way to know any better, but she was trained within an inch of her credibility.  On second thought, beyond it.  Gracefully decline to answer specific questions under court order?  Yes.  Use a court order as a nonsensical excuse to dodge any question you don’t like or, as in this case, don’t understand?  Never.  In fact, avoiding even the appearance of the latter is the whole point of the original media training.  And is now more important than ever, with so much of the latter political-style advice out there. 

The two ironies are:  (1) I’m sure the publicist is high-fiving everyone about how they “showed” Larry, while everyone who saw it actually thinks the publicist’s client is an idiot (not true, but that’s the unmistakable impression which was inexplicably created on purpose), and (2) I suspect Larry and Carrie would have had a far more interesting conversation left to their own devices.

Linda here again.  So far this year, I haven’t been real impressed with the ability of any beauty queen to handle herself in interviews.   I’m thinking Miss Teen USA 2007/Miss South Carolina (”such as”), Sarah Palin (”you betcha”), and now Carrie “(inappropriate”).   Are we asking too much of our “beautiful people” if we want them to handle themselves on air like an experienced politician, in addition to being able to be poised while walking on stilt-like heels?  Any beauty queens, current or former, care to enlighten me?   I’m no beauty queen, and I have high school pictures to prove it.

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