La Toya Fired: Don’t Blame Star

La Toya Jackson was an innocent victim of Donald Trump-ery on Celebrity Apprentice 4 (April 24th), Task 8. It’s true that the other members of Team ASAP have been conniving behind her back for the last few episodes, and Star Jones was more than willing to throw the baby-voiced sister of the King of Pop under the bus even though ASAP’s failure was her own fault, but if La Toya watches the episode back, we think even she will agree that Trump had made up his mind to get rid of a weak link no matter what.

If would have been more interesting if Star had picked Hope Dworaczyk AND La Toya to come back in the boardroom with her, but Star must have known that in that case, Donald Trump would have let Hope go because La Toya has gotten some really impressive compliments from company execs on prior tasks.

In “Bitter Suites,” the task was to create an ad campaign for the Trump Hotels. Donald Trump told team leader John Rich that the disadvantage he would have to labor under was not being all that acquainted with super luxury. Star Jones, who is acquainted with super luxury and not the least shy in letting everyone know, headed up Team ASAP, bragging on her world travels in Paris, London, Morocco and let’s not forget San Tropez and sailing on the Mediterranean Sea.

QUOTE ROUNDUP: CELEBRITY APPRENTICE 4 EP 8: LA TOYA FIRED

On Team ASASP, NeNe and La Toya patched up their differences. NeNe’s eye-rolling was addressed. “I felt there were eyes rolling, talking behind my back. Girls, I’m human. That hurts,” Jackson said.

It really bothered NeNe when she thought La Toya didn’t like her because she later asked La Toya if she would call if she ever went to Atlanta. La Toya said she better have a great guest room.

The women focused on pampering and luxury and individual words that would convey that super luxury, while the men went with the slogan “Live the Life,” focusing not only on luxury but also the five star service you can expect at a Trump Hotel and also capitalized on their own experience right there at Trump Soho. With Gary Busey gone, Meat Loaf sort of became the New Bizarro with strange ramblings about mirrors and advising a butler how to look like the best butler in the world.

The men had no contact info, and epic spelling errors — which was funny since they all got on Gary’s case for spelling errors on the Omaha Steaks menus. Lil Jon spells sophistication with two o’s and can’t be messing around with spell check much. John Rich caught that one, but his spelling must leave a lot to be desired too, since he missed a lot more.

The presentations were judged by Jim Petrus, the CEO of Trump Hotels, and James Oseland, the editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine. They hated both campaigns.

The women’s team’s brochure was pronounced “sleazy.” It was too cluttered, Hope’s towel was showing in the rose petal bubble bath and how did that bubbly get in the glass she was holding when someone neglected to uncork the champagne bottle? Oseland said: “This campaign that the women did reminds me of those advertisements that get placed under your windshield wiper for sleazy clubs.” Ouch, Star!

“This is really a case of the lesser of two evils,” Petrus said, “There isn’t really a winner,” — so the lesser of two evils was Team Backbone. They can’t spell but they’re not sleazy.

In the board room, by all rights, Star’s not-so-big anymore ass should have gotten a swift kick out the door. La Toya, suffering from laryngitis, matter-of-factly told Donald what a bossy wench Star is. It’s her way or the highway. Star recognized that Trump’s focus on weakness could work in her favor. Her strategy to save herself from the axe was to bring NeNe and LaToya together as heads that could roll besides her own. Donald thought that was double-teaming LaToya, but it really wasn’t. Star was banking on the fact that Trump would let the weakest team member go and she was right. Why did she not want Hope to be fired?

Maybe because Marlee Matlin likes Hope and Star doesn’t want to rattle Marlee’s cage. Who knows? All we know is that La Toya is still right about this:

“I think Star Jones is a very manipulative person, I think she’s very conniving and she’s very evil …”

QUOTE ROUNDUP: CELEBRITY APPRENTICE 4 EP 8: LA TOYA FIRED