Of the 78 celebs who have played in Donald Trump’s reality competition in the past, no one wants to be the first person fired from Celebrity Apprentice. In the premiere episode of Celebrity Apprentice’s seventh season (original air date Sunday, Jan. 4) Keshia Knight Pulliam “a.k.a. Rudy Huxtable” got the axe from Mr. Trump. So what led to the firing? Here’s how things went down. Let’s start with the players and the teams — it’s the men against the women again.
The men’s team includes:
Johnny Damon, two-time World Series champion
Gilbert Gottfried, actor and legendary comedian
Sig Hansen, captain on Discovery’s popular Deadliest Catch
Kevin Jonas, world-famous musician from the pop band The Jonas Brothers
Lorenzo Lamas, actor best known for his 1980s role in Falcon Crest
Terrell Owens, NFL great
Geraldo Rivera, author, war correspondent and talk show host
Ian Ziering, actor best known for his role in Beverly Hills, 90210
The women’s team includes:
Jamie Anderson, gold medal Olympic snowboarder
Vivica A. Fox, actor (Independence Day, Soul Food)
Leeza Gibbons, talk show host and actor
Brandi Glanville, reality star from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and best-selling author
Kate Gosselin, TV personality from TLC’s Kate Plus 8
Shawn Johnson, gold medal Olympian for gymnastics
Kenya Moore, former Miss USA and star of The Real Housewives of Atlanta
Keshia Knight Pulliam, actor best known for playing Rudy Huxtable on The Cosby Show
The Challenge: Creating and selling their own celebrity created pies for Pie Face and raising the most amount of money, which will be donated to the project manager’s favorite charity. In addition, the best tasting pie will also receive a $25,000 bonus from Toshiba.
The Pie Judge: TLC’s Cake Boss Buddy Valastro
The Advisors: Ivanka Trump and former Celebrity Apprentice winner Piers Morgan
The Winner of Episode 1: The men’s team, led by Geraldo Rivera
The Money Raised:
The women, who did win best tasting pie and the 25K, raised $93,862.
The men raised $185,322
The Men’s Approach
First thing was establishing a name for their team. Geraldo was first to throw out a name crediting the horrible winter as his inspiration for his suggested name — Vortex. Gottfried’s suggestion was cringe-worthy lame — Gilbert’s Warriors — along with his original complaints about being cold, but don’t rule him out – despite that trademark borderline-annoying voice of his, his endearing personality and not taking himself too seriously will win you over. Lorenzo Lamas suggested Geraldo, as Geraldo was dominating the conversation, however, that proved to be successful as the team eventually went with Vortex.
“Gerald was like a frickin steamroller,” Kevin Jonas said about the brainstorming session for the team’s name. Ian Ziering was equally annoyed with Geraldo’s relentlessness saying, “clearly he’s used to doing it his way.”
Project Manager Elected: Geraldo, who is playing for his charity Life’s Work, which focuses on the developmentally disabled and the severely autistic. Once you survive Somalia and other war zones, Geraldo explained, the task of project management “will not be so daunting.” That proved to be true this time.
When Ivanka asked Geraldo for his assessment on his team, he gave a shout-out to Kevin Jonas and his huge following of fans, as well, as Ziering, whom he mispronounced his first name as E-an vs. I-an which annoyed Ziering further. In terms of his team’s value, Geraldo was quick to access that when it comes to social media, Jonas was going to be huge asset. “Just on Twitter I have 4.3 million who follow me,” Jonas tells. [Terrell Owen’s got 1.4 million. Geraldo’s got 56,100. FYI I’ve only got 450)
“Geraldo is used to being the alpha male, he walks into the room and people know him,” Jonas said. “He’s had a long history and I totally respect that, but at the same time I don’t know how I’m going to work with that.” It’s clear from the start these two are going to butt heads.
Geraldo’s ego could get in the way in future episodes when it comes to demographics and knowing which of the celebs market – case in point was the marketing strategy where promotional materials had his head pictured twice the size of the other celebrities, and actually appearing twice in the posters. But when it came to on-the-street popularity Johnny Damon was the man – fans flocked to him for photographs, as well as Jonas.
The biggest surprise in the men’s group was Gilbert Gottfried, while Geraldo was somewhat dismissive and condescending to the comic, Gilbert was the glue to the team providing comic relief to both his teammates and fans who showed up for the event. Gottfried made calls to his showbiz friends to give the event a “carnival-like” atmosphere. Terrell Owens described Gilbert as a “breathe of fresh air. … He’s my most favorite guy of the group.”
In The Boardroom Geraldo introduced team Vortex as a “cross section of American manhood” to his boss Mr. Trump. Again, reality check to tone down that ego. Gilbert was hilarious when asked to describe his project manager saying, “I’m not sure about what I thought of his Puerto Rican side, but I loved his Jew side.” Geraldo admitted that Gottfried is “surprisingly and easily an under-estimated person.” Gottfried could be the dark horse of the group.
While Geraldo’s huge ego and self-described confidence can be an annoyance, the guy rocked at bringing in the money and staying true to the challenge’s focus. He earned his mettle on this round. He also gets props for honestly not trying to point fingers on who on his team raised the least amount of money when Trump was trying to have him call someone out. Ivanka did the dirty working calling out Lamas for only raising $100 and Terrell Owens for only $750.
The Women’s Approach
A few ideas for the team name were floated around, like Team Gold because the ladies’ team has two Olympian gold medalists, but Kenya Moore’s idea of “Infinity” was the winner. She, of course, immediately took the credit for the idea and basked in her ego-centric glory: “This is what I do people. I create hit catchphrases.” There wasn’t too much “Bravo drama” between Brandi Glanville (Real Housewives of Beverly Hill) and Kenya Moore (Real Housewives of Atlanta) in this go around, but those two definitely will be the backstabbing Bs of this bunch.
Project Manager Elected: Keshia Knight Pulliam. Her charity is KampKizzy, which takes a holistic approach to self-esteem, empowerment and motivation daring young people to dream big, think big and accomplish big. For Keshia, volunteering to be the project manager was part of her philosophy: “No risk, no reward.” Or in her other words, “Go big or go home.” Unfortunately, she did go home, however, Trump did end up giving her charity $25,000.
What Happened With the Women? It was clear from the start that the men would most likely have more money connections than the woman, but both teams gave a noble effort. Jamie Anderson came up with the winning pie idea, combining pears with blueberries. The second pie creation they served was based on Keshia’s enchilada recipe, which evoked a little tit for tat between Kate Gosselin and Keshia over calling it a taco pie or enchilada pie. Brandi was quick to point out: “Kate loves the sound of her own voice.” Yeah, we knows that. Despite claims that Keshia didn’t give the women exact duties, Kate and the way-too-nice Jamie Anderson head to the kitchen and focus their efforts working on making the pies versus fund raising. Kate said: “I cook three meals a day for nine people so to come up with a huge quantity of bake goods — it’s an understatement to say that I was confortable doing that.”
Working the phone banks hard was Leeza Gibbons who said she is “incredibly blessed that I have some relationships with some people with sizeable dollars.” She delivered for the ladies.
Kenya felt the need to address what she believed to be was the “elephant in the room,” and calls out Keshia for not contacting her former cast member — Bill Cosby — for a donation, believing he’s a golden opportunity (note: this was filmed prior to the recent Cosby allegations). “You don’t call him up for a donation, OK? That’s just crazy,” she says. Kenya brings it up again, later in the boardroom.
As for Keshia, she claims she hasn’t talked to Cosby in several years and didn’t believe it was her place to just ring him up out of the blue asking for money, however, did credit him and the show for her own philanthropy efforts. “From the days on The Cosby Show and having that great example with Mr. Cosby, the importance of philanthropy and giving back to others has been a part of my life forever,” Keshia said. She’s a class act.
In the boardroom Keshia identified the star of the woman’s team to be Leeza Gibbons, who she said had checks coming in consistently. She also credited Jamie, Kate and Shawn for doing a good job making the pies. When asked who she believed was the weakest player, Kenya said: “maybe the project manager” and cited poor directives and her failure to call Cosby, again. Kate raised no money and Brandi was quick to call her out for it, flat out saying: “Kate was lazy. She stood around talking.” Kate was aghast. Vivica A. Fox was crying, she might not be cut out for it. Kate started tearing up as well, and Keshia was holding it back. Trump’s immune to the women and their waterworks, but was empathetic and donated $25,000 to Keshia’s charity. Although the women did win $25,000 for their blueberry/pear pie, it only brought their total to $93,862 compared to the men’s $185,322 so they were asked back to the boardroom. Keshia picked Jamie Anderson and Kate Gosselin to come back with her to the boardroom to face Trump. Because Keshia was the project manager and she failed to win the challenge, she was fired.
> Celebrity Apprentice moves to Mondays at 8pmET beginning Monday, Jan. 5.
Photos: Credit: Douglas Gorenstein/NBC
\It’s obvious from Mr T’s comments that Geraldo is going to be one of the last ones standing. perhaps he has a new show to push as did the winner of the last celebrity show who certainly show have been fired weeks earlier.
Geraldo has an ego that doesn’t quit…even though we are both the same age I see him as a falling star who is fading out. He bragged so many
times about his past accomplishments that they should have called it the Geraldo show. Many of the other stars will have as many or ore accomplishments once they reach his age.
I may not watch every show s I get tired of him steam rollering over the others