Miss California Lashes Back

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, charged on The Early Show Wednesday that celebrity blogger and Miss USA judge Perez Hilton sabotaged her chances of becoming Miss USA at last month's pageant by intentionally giving her a low score after her now-famous remarks opposing same-sex marriage.

Prejean finished second.

But on Tuesday, Miss USA pageant owner Donald Trump said she could keep her state crown.

Wednesday was Prejean's 22nd birthday.

In a wide-ranging interview with co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, Prejean also defended herself against critics who say racy photos of her that have surfaced since the Miss USA competition are inappropriate, especially for someone espousing Prejean's strong Christian beliefs.

Prejean has come under fire for the steamy pictures, the anti-same-sex marriage remarks, and breast implants paid for, at least in part, by Miss California officials to try to up her odds of winning the Miss USA pageant.

At Trump's Tuesday news conference, Prejean said she feels she was punished for responding to a question from Hilton during the Miss USA competition by saying she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Prejean told Rodriguez, "Mr. Hilton obviously gave me a low score because of my answer. And I was just expressing my freedom of speech."

Asked by Rodriguez if she feels Hilton scored her so low it brought down her overall score enough for her to lose, or whether she thinks all the judges gave her low marks because of her same-sex marriage answer, Prejean replied, "I will never know. That's just something, you know, I'll never know the outcome of. But I do know that he did score me the lowest. There were three other judges who were gay, so... "

CBSNews.com Video: The Media Frenzy

Photos: Controversial Miss California

"The contract is pretty explicit," Rodriguez pointed out, "(saying) you had to disclose that those photos were out there. Why didn't you?"

"It's not that I didn't disclose them. It's that I never thought a photographer would be so unprofessional that he would release, you know, inappropriate photos like that, which were in-between shots.

"Is that naive of you?"

"Absolutely. Absolutely. I should have requested those photos for my own personal use and had him have no rights to those, which we are looking into."

Prejean added, "I think any one of those girls, if you'd really dig into their past, I'm sure you would find some things. But who makes the same decisions they did when they were 16 and 17 years old? Not many of us. It's all about who we are today. And I'm very proud of the woman I am."

Is it hypocritical of Prejean, Rodriguez wondered, to pose for steamy photos while holding devout religious beliefs?

"I never posed topless. It was... "

"You didn't have a top on in the pictures," Rodriguez noted.

"It wasn't a topless photo," Prejean continued. "I was on stage in a bikini. You know, I'm a professional model. That's what I do for a living. And, you know, people can say whatever they want to say. If I was topless or nude or whatever. You know, a lot of people saw those photos and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the photos, as Donald Trump said yesterday."

"And you don't feel it interferes with your faith or what you preach publicly?"

"Absolutely not. My message to my church and young girls that attend church is, you know, I am a very strong woman today. And the decisions I made when I was 16 and 17 years old, I was very naive, trying to get into the modeling industry. And I definitely would not make those decisions today."

But Prejean was less direct when Rodriguez asked about the breast implants.

Asked about the message Prejean geting them send to young girls and whether it might lead them to believe "they have to enhance themselves to have a better chance of winning in life," Prejean asserted, "Well, I think that that's definitely an irrelevant topic. And we kind of cleared that up yesterday (at the news conference). So -- "

"But what would you say if they were watching right now and they didn't see you yesterday?"

"I think that's -- that has nothing to do with me answering a question on stage. And that's what I think we really need to focus on."