Pizza Princess: Niki Taylor on Celebrity Apprentice

“The Celebrity Apprentice” made its debut on NBC tonight with:

The men’s team — Team Backbone — was led by the winner of Season 1 “Survivor,” Richard Hatch. They also had former “Keith Partridge” teen idol, David Cassidy; baseball player, Jose Canseco; rapper, Lil John; singer, Mark McGrath (“Sugar Ray”); country singer, John Rich; and general scary looney bird, Gary Busey. He scares us anyway. Oh and Meat Loaf, too, we almost forgot about him. Seven out of eight ain’t bad.

The women’s team — ASAP — was led by former “The View” host, Star Jones. Also on board: singer, Dionne Warwick, Atlanta Housewives’ NeNe Leakes; actress and Harry Hamlin mate, Lisa Rinna; actress, Marlee Matlin; model, Niki Taylor, and LaToya Jackson, who is famous basically for being a Jackson.

Both teams had to raise money for charity by selling expensive pizzas which they had to make and serve to customers, as well as deliver take-out orders.

On Team ASAP, Niki Taylor turned out to be a pizza pie making machine while Star Jones made big plans to rake in the cash, and also had high praise for Niki, since no pizza – no money. The way Niki picked up the knack of twirling the dough so fast was cool.

There was some snafus, but it wasn’t with the pizzas or the cash, although the ladies did lose a big donation by failing to deliver 40 pies to the firehouse where they would have picked up a huge donation (like $35K huge – we know things are expensive in NYC, but that’s ridiculous), which Lisa Rinna tried to blame on Star but ended up getting the blame for.

The Backbone Team had less success with the money and getting along, with Richard Hatch pushing little David Cassidy, who was pretty upset about it. David Cassidy’s daughter Katie came by to donate a grand, but that wasn’t much help. It actually worked against him in the final showdown and Donald Trump fired his ass.

Team ASAP kicked Backbone’s butt big time in the money department, making over 100 grand. The men didn’t even come close.

David Cassidy was chided for “whining” and taking too many breaks. It almost seemed like Trump thought he was lying about his breaks, saying first he said he didn’t take any, then it was one, then it was two … any more? The final nail in his coffin was that thing where the only money he brought in was nepotistic in nature. Pretty funny, with the Trump kids on the panel, eh?

David took it as well as he could, saying it isn’t in his nature to be physically violent, but you just knew that’s only because he’s a little guy and if he was bigger, he would have thoroughly enjoyed kicking Richard Hatch’s ass up and down Broadway and then sticking his head in the pizza oven.