I liked @AshOoO's answer but like @Rajan Rawal I needed to preserve selected item state, if any. So I added my customization to his method AddFirstItem()
public static SelectList AddFirstItem(SelectList origList, SelectListItem firstItem)
{
List<SelectListItem> newList = origList.ToList();
newList.Insert(0, firstItem);
var selectedItem = newList.FirstOrDefault(item => item.Selected);
var selectedItemValue = String.Empty;
if (selectedItem != null)
{
selectedItemValue = selectedItem.Value;
}
return new SelectList(newList, "Value", "Text", selectedItemValue);
}