Celebrity Apprentice: Jessica Alba’s Honest Challenge

Jessica Alba and her Honest Company were featured in the first task on 2/6/2017. We’re down to 4 celebrities now and 3 of them are on Team Arete. Arnold “The Governor” Schwarzenegger had to fix that situation right away so Boy George found himself on Team Prima with Brooke Burke-Charvet. Team Arete is now Laila Ali and Matt Iseman.

The celebrities learned that they would need to create a live demonstration to convince people that Jessica Alba’s line of products from The Honest Company are the way to go, showcasing why they are unique and why they should live an honest life. They have to select 3 products to work with. In case you aren’t familiar with the company sells, they sell non-toxic products, or products that they claim are non-toxic, because there has been some controversy about that. The usual $50 grand goes to the winner’s charity.

Chief marketing officer, Chris Thorne, was on hand to give them the judging criteria: creativity, alignment with brand principles and overall execution. The unintended implication that folks weren’t already leading honest lives was rather funny, not only in view of the company’s lawsuits but particularly because Chris looked like he could be cast in a mob movie, talking out of one side of his mouth like a straight gangster.

Even though there are only two on each team, they still had to designate a project manager. So that was Boy George for Prima. Why, we don’t know. Laila Ali felt strongly that she was leading the honest life, she was already using the products and “It’s time,” she said, “It’s time for the champ!” So she declared herself the natural leader for Arete. We’re sure Matt was relieved.

Brooke seemed to think that she was the real project manager. She wanted Boy George to sing, but he thought that was getting old. He started doing a Japanese chant that Brooke thought might be a turn-off. Boy George felt very spiritual about the whole thing. He thought Brooke was too bossy and she thought he was uber-disorganized. Patrick Schwarzenegger dropped in on them and he brought up Boy George’s being disorganized. That probably came up in some other episode– who can remember? And that’s why it sounded scripted that he just zeroed in on what they were already bickering about. Boy George was offended and said (in his confessional) that it was “absolute hogwash,” claiming he wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t smart, calculating and hard-working. Uh, okay, we don’t remember that either. Dude can’t even measure a wall!

Laila, on the other hand, was delighted with Matt’s organization skills but not so much on how his showmanship. “I don’t like to be hokey,” she said, “I don’t like to be silly.” Laila was working on a demo angle, when Jessica Alba showed up. Jessica mentioned the personal touch. She felt that would give it the honest and genuine feel she was after. Now Laila is sure that she needs to tone down Matt’s sales pitch ways so she can meet Jessica’s expectations. When Matt returned from shopping for their props, Laila had not even started working on a script. She was preoccupied with a pamphlet. Matt correctly thought their live script was way more important than the pamphlet and set to work on the script himself.

Boy George and Brooke didn’t even rehearse their presentation but it went smoothly enough. They pretended to be a married couple. Boy George didn’t overdo the chanting, though he made his mirror dirtier than he planned on and had to scrub the devil out of it. Brooke used The Honest Stain Remover on a cloth that she put so much hard-to-remove stuff on (ketchup, grape juice and coffee) that even Jessica Alba had a “Lawd have mercy” look on her face. But it worked! It came clean and Jessica beamed. Boy George chimed in with: “Who doesn’t love evidence?”

On Arete, Laila hyped the Lemon Verbena dish soap and organic healing balm, describing how being a mom was tougher on her hands than punching people in the boxing ring. Laila was concerned that Matt shared a bit too much personal information about his girlfriend and her skin rashes. Matt cleaned a grill with the Honest Multi-Purpose Cleaner then used the same product on a high chair to demonstrate that it was strong and gentle because it doesn’t contain chlorine or ammonia. Laila concluded with a shout out to the company for giving back.

In the boardroom, Brooke and Boy George went through their bossy/disorganized shtick, but said that they felt their presentation ultimately worked. It had a Lucy/Desi feel to it, with their pretend marriage and how they danced. (In a Lucy/Desi show, wouldn’t someone would end up with a pie in their face at least?) Laila felt the task was a perfect fit and Matt gave her high marks all the way around, making sure she got all the credit for everything (and the blame if they lost. lol).

Jessica loved the risk Prima took with the mirror and washcloth demonstrations, because it worked, of course. (Did you see Laila’s face when she heard about that! OMG! Her eyes may have turned green.) On the downside, they were weak on a takeway for the audience as they didn’t put a big emphasis on how Honest products differ from other brands.

Team Arete got high marks for nailing the product values in a concise manner and a strong takeaway for the audience. They were somewhat lacking in creativity and the tactical, methodical presentation gave it an infomercial feel.

So Prima won this challenge, making Boy George a 2x winner. Another $50,000 goes to his charity Safe Kids Worldwide, which made the rocker feel really “chuffed.”

Laila wasted no time pussyfooting around and squarely placed the blame for the loss on Matt. He was responsible for the infomercial feel and she didn’t think he was enthusiastic enough about the products. Matt fought for his spot. He was already a 2x winner and Laila was behind the creativity all the way on this task. Despite Matt’s excellent record, Laila claimed she was the stronger player going forward, bringing up how she helped all the “losers” on Team Prima finally get a win.

But the Governor terminated Laila without really pointing out the precise reason why. That was annoying as hell, but he wasn’t done yet. He called the remaining three back in the boardroom and fired Brooke, too, the main reason being that they were going to have a finale and there couldn’t be three people in it.

Matt Iseman and Boy George are the two lucky finalists. We say “lucky” because we can think of no other reason it got narrowed down to the two of them.

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