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Celebrity Apprentice 4

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apskip:
Here is a potential reason for the antipathy between Star Jones and NeNe Leakes:

New York Post Page Six, 5/10/11 1248am

Fired "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant Star Jones' ex-husband, Al Reynolds, is demanding $50,000 from the loose-lipped diva for trashing him on "The Wendy Williams Show" and blasting his rumored current girlfriend -- her TV nemesis, NeNe Leakes.

apskip:
CA4, Ep. 10

Celebrity Apprentice is rolling toward its final conclusion. Donald Trump announced that he was dealing with the reciprocated strong hatred between NeNe and Star by switching NeNe to Backbone, so she would have the opportunity to beat Star as an opponent rather than teammate. Meat Loaf was switched to ASAP to join Marlee and Star. The task was to raise the most money by creating a Comedy Night and he brought in CNBC’s Jim Cramer, a guy he associates with big money, to be his advisor with Ivanka. La Toya has joined Backbone and was named PM. Meat Loaf got that responsibility for ASAP.

Backbone started working on this task, but NeNe never showed up and never called. She did call Donald Trump to explain to him that she saw no point in being part of Celebrity Apprentice if she could not be fighting on the same team as Star Jones. (Note: in the paper today when I write this is an article about why this may have developed - Star Jones' ex-husband, Al Reynolds, is demanding $50,000 from the loose-lipped diva for trashing him on "The Wendy Williams Show" and blasting his rumored current girlfriend -- her TV nemesis, NeNe Leake

John claimed that he tapped out his big money sources during his earlier fund-raising competition against Marlee Matlin, but he did the best he could and did indeed raise $20,000 cash from one donor. It appears that Backbone is claiming a total of about $70.000. Mum was the word from ASAP on fund-raising. You just know that Marlee can raise it if she chooses to.

The performances are 30 minutes each at the Gotham Comedy Club. John Rich dug deep and convinced Jimmy Fallon to perform for Backbone. Jimmy not only agreed, but he wrote a song (Yer fired! Yer fired! Yer fired! Yer fired!) and personally donated $10,000. Star went to Tracy Morgan, who shot a brief comedy video. The rest of the performances were 3 young comedians on the way up for each team. Those performances went off well. Meat Loaf was the emcee against La Toya and Marlee did a 2 minute comedy routine. The big question remained who had raised the most money? Based on past obfuscation on fund-raising for ASAP, I am betting that they somehow did and Donald Trump did not want the audience to know that for a while longer.

The boardroom was fairly typical. Trump went out of his way to mention Meat Loaf’s special request for keeping his own fund-raising and not losing it if they lost. Trump stated that his response was to reject that request because Celebrity Apprentice is all about raising money for charity, all about winning. He went on to point out the upside that Meat Loaf could keep everything raised by the other team if he won.

Trump stated that NeNe quit. He said that she was a loser and a quitter and had her ass kicked by Star Jones. He said that Hope and NeNe were gone and that was fine. He went on to state that LaToya was very solid.

However, this task was only measured on money raised. ASAP raised $102,080, much of it by Meat Loaf. Backbone raised $82,500, over half of it by John Rich. ASAP won and was excused. It was then all about who was responsible on Backbone. Trump found LaToya responsible (because she was by not raising more money herself) and she was given a very friendly firing.


Celebrity Apprentice 4, Ep. 11

There are now John and Lil Jon on Backbone and Marlee, Star and Meat Loaf on ASAP.  The task was to make a 90 second commercial for OnStar and the criteria were the same as they have been for most creative tasks. The PMs were Marlee and Lil Jon. The prize was $20,000 which OnStar executives present agreed to match.  Each team went about this in a different way. The final commercial for Backbone was based on mentioning the name OnStar up front and at the end as available in local electronics stores, with Lil Jon doing the ending with two actors and urging the viewer to “Discover On.” A soccer mom filmed driving a car was not wearing a seatbelt, which was a major flaw in the Backbone production.  Star was in charge of branding. Nobody was responsible for placing it into the video and there was no script for their commercial which was improvised. Meat Loaf put in 2 attempts at humor into the filming actually made, but I found both of them lame. Star was the narrator.

Trump got the verdict from the OnStar executives. He came to the boardroom and went through his normal routine. Backbone had the superior commercial, so it was someone from ASAP who would be fired. John Rich and Lil Jon were excused with John reaching a total of $695,000 with his total winnings (thanks to the generosity of Marlee Matlin).

Marlee as PM was the obvious choice, but she leads a charmed life. All focus was on Meat Loaf versus Star. After a bit of questioning they were asked to step out of the room. Star and meatloaf got into a shouting match hearable from inside the boardroom because Meat Loaf called Star “sweetie” and she overreacted, probably as a way of causing another negative to be chalked up to the Trump tally on Meat Loaf. However, George Ross was not buying it and he stated while they were out of the room that Star should be fired due to brand messaging deficiencies. Donald Jr. stated that there was a good case for each of the three ASAP team members. I would have fired Marlee Matlin for poor project management leadership or Meat Loaf for being the creative director and having little sense of comedy (in spite of his being a star in rocky Horror Picture Show movie from way back when). Trump elected to fire Star Jones.

In the next episode, Trump plans to have the 3 past Celebrity Apprentices evaluate the remaining 4 and recommend which 2 should be fired. I don’t know if the Final 2 will get started on their final task, but I would expect that they do.
 

apskip:
It occurred to me that a double standard could be in use by Donald Trump on "what constitutes a situation where you can ask to keep your money raised?" In an early episode, distinguished by record fund-raising, John Rich and Marlee Matlin were given permission by Trump to request permission for that from the other. Marlee must have known she could not be beaten, but gave up over $500,000 that John had raised so that he could keep it for St. Jude. In episode 10, Meat Loaf asked for the same to Donald Trump and Trump said no. So what was different? I think that the latter situation is the standard and the John Rich request was offered only in the context of totally record fund-raising.

TexasLady:
NeNe knew she couldn't compete for donors. She isn't in the same social circle and competing with performers who have wide access to people with money would have hurt her badly. It's a shame she didn't try to make up for this by doing something constructive but I'm certainly not sorry she is gone!

I was extremely disappointed with Marlee because she did not defend Meatloaf and she should have. Star was deflecting blame for branding when she was put in charge of branding and it was up to her to use the photos that would make the most of what Onstar exec's wanted. That was not leadership on her part.

About the money, this season has made so much of it that it has become tiresome for me. I wouldn't mind if they were selling pizzas and the general public had to endorse a certain team because they had better pizza or more ambiance, or like the exercise routine that we saw in the last season.

There has been a double standard this year, I agree with you apskip.

bee1233:
I agree with the final 2 prediction.  I can't picture it to be anyone else.

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