Smallscreen News

You Betcha! E! True Hollywood Story: Sarah Palin

By April MacIntyre Apr 14, 2011, 19:25 GMT

Sarah Palin © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

“Sarah Palin is the living embodiment of the American dream. You know, school teacher’s daughter and she worked her way up. Nobody really ever saw this coming.” – Lorenzo Bennet, Author Of “Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin”

Palin's E! Story premieres April 21 at 10:00 PM ET/PT

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin erupted onto the national scene when John McCain picked her as his running mate for the 2008 presidential election. 

She has since been parodied on Saturday Night Live, become a best-selling author and the star of her own reality TV show. 

Palin is one of the most famous women in the world - and now she’s getting the E! True Hollywood Story treatment. From her days as an Alaskan teenager to her highly scrutinized life today, this brand new THS is a fresh look at Sarah Palin and premieres on April 21, 2011 only on E!

From E!

Family, friends, former classmates, colleagues and journalists help paint a picture of the young Palin and describe her life - as a college student, sportscaster, fisherman and beauty pageant contestant - before the glare of the national spotlight.

Lorenzo Benet, author of the book Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin, tells E! about Palin’s reputation as a high school basketball player, “she got the nickname Sarah Barracuda… some people didn’t even like playing with her, she would scratch them and get up real close to them and she was very physical.”

Palin’s former boss, John Hernandez, sports director at KTUU TV in Anchorage, recalls “It was hard convincing the management that it was okay for a young lady to get paid to do sports in Anchorage, Alaska, but she was the best we had and they decided to give her a chance.”

Dr. Lorii Ann Perin, one of Palin’s friends from the University of Idaho says, “She was a natural beauty…I was surprised that Sarah had been in beauty pageants, because she was so incredibly shy.  I really couldn’t see her standing in front of a group of people or in front of a group of judges.  And I couldn’t see her wanting to be center stage.”

 “She was so new on the scene and so different,” says Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident, about Palin’s nomination for VP. “I mean she can skin a moose. The whole back-story thing makes her so different…just feeds curiosity.”

“People can’t tell the difference [between] what she said and what Tina Fey said and they just sort of accredit everything to Sarah Palin,” says Jay Newton-Small, Political Correspondent, Time Magazine.

“She came home to absolutely no friends. The Democrats who she had worked with no longer had much to say to her. So, it wasn’t a big glory coming home,” says Shannyn Moore, a political radio host.

When Palin decided to resign as Governor, Lyda Green, former president of the Alaskan State Senate, recalls, “it was my understanding that her own family didn’t know what she was doing. Her husband was out fishing and [she] said, ‘you gotta come and be here’ and you don’t call someone in the middle of fishing season unless it’s very important.”

Very few people are neutral about Sarah Palin, which makes her journey all the more fascinating.  For an inside look at her life as a politician, mother and pop-culture celebrity, be sure to tune-in to the E! THS: Sarah Palin on April 21st- only on E!