Gretchen Carlson speaks to INSIDE EDITION about her new memoir, and reveals how winning the Miss America pageant helped launch her TV career.
Gretchen Carlson is known as the anchor of The Real Story on the Fox News channel, but Carlson and INSIDE EDITION's Deborah Norville have a very special connection that goes way back.
Norville told her, "I have probably known you longer than just about anyone in New York."
Carlson said, "Because you were one of my judges at the Miss America pageant in September 1988.
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Back then, she was a fresh faced girl from Minnesota, a graduate of Stanford and very talented.
Norville asked, "I know you were really talented. You played the violin beautifully. What is this thing on your head! What were you thinking?"
Carlson admitted, "I got that dress very, very cheap. It was very stylish. There was a ruffle on the bottom, we cut that off and made a hair piece."
A virtuoso violin performance helped her clinch the crown.
Norville asked, "How did winning that contest affect the trajectory of your life?"
She replied, "It put me on the national stage, gave me a platform to talk about the arts and education. It put me in front of a television camera. I never thought I'd get into TV as a career."
Now, Carlson has written a new memoir called Getting Real to share her life lessons.
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She admits, "I'm happen to be just a fat girl from Minnesota who played a wild violin who lost some weight and ended up on the stage. I have a great life lesson of encouragement that if I can do it, you can do it too!"
Click Here To Read An Excerpt of the Book. From Getting Real by Gretchen Carlson, published on June 16, 2015 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright by Gretchen Carlson, 2015.
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