Terrell Owens Drops the Ball: Celebrity Apprentice

The second episode of Celebrity Apprentice on 1/12/2015 had the teams meeting up with Donald Trump at the Central Park Boat House. They were informed that their task was to set up a boutique and sell wedding gowns. It was strictly a money task and Trump said he was going to give the losing team’s money to the winning team, but first some changes were in order. He made the teams coed.

Vivica Fox, Shawn Johnson and Kate Gosselin were now on Team Vortex with original members Sig Hansen, Lorenzo Lamas and Geraldo Rivera.

Ian Ziering, Johnny Damon and Terrell Owens went over to Team Infinity with the remaining originals Brandi Glanville, Kenya Moore and Leeza Gibbons.

It was interesting at least that Trump left Brandi and Kenya on the same team knowing their professed dislike of each other, but not as interesting as Geraldo Rivera and Ian Ziering stepping up as team leaders just because they wanted to beat each other badly. “Geraldo thinks he’s cock of the roost,” Ian opined and was determined to prove that wasn’t so.

On Team Infinity, Brandi solved her Kenya problem by going off by herself to raise money. Ian worried about her lack of interaction with the team, but she told him all the chatter distracted her and she was determined to pull her weight in the fund-raising effort. Then she got a panic attack and disappeared. Still she was good to her word and raised more money than any other team member, after Ian. He got one donor for $165K that no one could top, not even Geraldo. Ian also had Chippendale dancers getting women in the boutique. Kenya pulled in almost as much as Brandi AND worked like the devil at selling dresses. Terrell was not pursuing his potential donors as hard as he should have, Every time you saw him, he was eating, yawning and making excuses about how he did everything he could do and if the donor doesn’t come through, it’s not his fault.

On Vortex, Kate came up with the idea to have women get a quick hairdo and to dress up like a bride at the door, with Geraldo dressed as a groom, to attract people. Sig Hansen was hustling women off the street into the store and Kate worried that he treated them like so roughly, like he was wrestling with a fish in the ocean. Geraldo got a $100,000 check while Kate had a heart-pounding wait for the $30,000 check she was expecting. This time it did come through, albeit at the last minute.

In the boardroom, Trump congratulated the teams on raising almost $600,000 between the two of them. The difference between the two figures was so close — only about $2,400 — Trump decided to do something that had never been done before on Celebrity Apprentice: leave it up to the project managers to decide if they wanted to agree to keep what they had made for their charities or if they wanted to let winner take all, per the original deal.

Ian let Geraldo go first and he graciously opted for each leader keeping what he made. Don’t forget that this is the second task that Geraldo has won. He earned $280K for his charity Life’s WORC in the premiere, so there’s just no way he could have went for the total win without looking bad. Ian agreed and didn’t think it would be right to roll the dice when his charity, the EBMRF Foundation, could really use that large donation. Infinity raised $292,547 and Vortex raised $294,781. Trump declared Geraldo’s team the winner and rounded Geraldo’s donation to $300K.

Ian Ziering had no choice but to bring back the lowest earners who were Johnny Damon and Terrell Owens. Ian implored Trump to round up his donation to $300K and Trump did (after pretending he wouldn’t). Ian was sorely disappointed to learn there was a $5K donor Terrell didn’t want to press. He really won in terms of getting his charity a big donation, but beating Geraldo would have been a feather in his cap that he will now have to do without. He will probably remember that every time he sees Terrell Owens. So with a heavy heart, he told Donald Trump he should fire Terrell. The 6′ 3″ wide receiver agreed and he was fired.

But they all took the trip down the elevator before Terrell:

• Jamie Anderson
• Gilbert Gottfried
• Kevin Jonas
• Keshia Knight Pulliam