Lisa Rinna reflects on her time working on The Apprentice with Donald Trump in her new memoir, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It.
The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 62, recalled her time on both Celebrity Apprentice in 2011 and what she calls her “redemption tour” on Celebrity Apprentice: All-Stars two years later.
Rinna’s first appearance on Trump’s reality series resulted in her firing during the second week of the competition. “The night I got Trump’s signature ‘You’re Fired!’ I called Harry [Hamlin, her husband] sobbing from my room at 12:30 in the morning,” she wrote. But her return for the All-Star season was more successful, as she finished in fourth place.
“Everyone always asks me to spill the tea on Trump, but I don’t have any,” Rinna wrote, referring elsewhere in the memoir to the president as “our current Circus Peanut in Chief.”
“There were no signs back then that he’d become the monster he is today,” she continued. “Trump was a great entertainer. He would come out, say his lines, do his job, and move it along.”
Rinna’s stint on the show included appearances from several Trump family members, including Melania, Ivanka, Eric and Don Jr. The soap opera star described Melania and Ivanka as “robots” and “total Stepford Wives.”
“And the sons Don Jr. and Eric were just as gross as they are now,” Rinna added.
“I do find it interesting that I didn’t think Trump was gross at the time,” the Traitors star continued. “He was nice to me, he was professional, and on time. That’s all you ever want on a set.
“Flash forward to today, I really dislike him I think he’s horrible and has ruined the world. I was as shocked as anybody at who he became. Maybe he’s always been that way and he finally took the mask off.”
Rinna, who exited The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in 2023 after eight seasons, cited her outspokenness over Trump as part of the reason why fans turned against her in her final season on the show.
When cameras picked up for season 12, Rinna was in the throes of grief, having lost her mother, Lois, just three days prior to filming. Fans watched as she lashed out repeatedly throughout the season and unleashed her innermost thoughts on social media, leading to her departure from the hit franchise.
“I had so much repressed anger from my mother’s death then, and the feeling that I was forced to go back to work too soon,” Rinna wrote.
“I really lost my mind. I started acting out loudly on social media. I was just calling people out — I even called Donald Trump out. I mean, who knows what I even did? I was in the fog of my own grief.”
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