Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth of ‘The Apprentice’: Bad for Business

It’s not easy to get a full induction into the Reality TV Hall of Shame. Just being a generally nasty and unpleasant person isn’t enough, or the Hall of Shame would be massively over-crowded. So at first, we didn’t think that Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth of The Apprentice belonged here. But after watching the recap episode of the show, and after seeing an array of media appearances Omarosa made after the show aired, it became apparent that Omarosa was more than deserving of this dubious honor.

It’s true that simply being a bitch isn’t enough to land you in the Hall of Shame, but in Omarosa’s case, it didn’t hurt. From the beginning, Omarosa’s nasty and condescending attitude towards everyone else made it almost impossible for those around her to function as an effective team. In the first few episodes of the show, Omarosa’s feud with Ereka was a primary concern for the project managers. Amy said she’d only serve as project manager if the two of them would try to get along. She ended up handling the situation by keeping the two of them separated through the entire task. It worked, but keeping Ereka and Omarosa from ripping each other’s throats out was a disruption that Amy did not need.

Then in the next episode, when Jessie was selected to lead the team, her very first act was to call a meeting to work out the differences that were dividing the team. Instead of focusing on the best way to do business and to win the challenges, the team leaders had to mediate a very distracting argument between two team members. Now Ereka is not blameless in the situation; it takes two people to start a rivalry. But Ereka was at least willing to listen to what Jessie had to say, whereas Omarosa refused to discuss it and left the room. She was more interested in being right than in working with the rest of her team to solve the problem.

If Ereka had been the only person whom Omarosa clashed with, we could just say that it was a personality conflict. But Omarosa also had ugly, nasty arguments with Katrina, Heidi, Kristi, and Jessie. The one common thread in each and every one of those clashes was Omarosa. Indeed, Omarosa seemed to have a total lack of respect for the other members of her team. In Episode 6, when her team lost, Omarosa said in an interview that she was confident she could outtalk every one of the others in the boardroom. She dismissively called Jessie a farm girl, Troy a country boy, Heidi a tough talking New Yorker, and Kwame an MBA robot. With Omarosa, it was never enough to just present herself in a positive light; she had to tear down everyone else.

Omarosa’s rude and patronizing attitude didn’t just irritate people. It was actually a detriment to her team. When Omarosa was project manager in the celebrity auction challenge, Jessie asked her for the contact information for a representative from the charity. She told Omarosa that she wanted to call to ask some questions about the charity’s mission so that she’d be able to answer any questions the celebrities might ask. Omarosa refused to give her the phone number, and then demanded to talk to Kwame. When Kwame made the same request, she hung up on him. The team was minutes before their first pitch to a celebrity. They were nervous and on edge. A good leader would have helped them to feel good and confident before that meeting, but Omarosa’s rude behavior did the exact opposite.

In the recap episode, we saw yet another example of Omarosa’s nastiness when confronted about her behavior. Amy told Omarosa very diplomatically that her attitude can be off-putting. Omarosa smiled at her and told her that all of the other women talked about each other behind their backs, and that people talked all the time about how Amy was a bad manager with poor organizational skills. Her telling Amy that was harsh, cruel… and completely false. In an interview, Omarosa laughed and said that when she told Amy that the other women didn’t respect her, it was “a fun mind game.” She claimed that it was completely fair. Lying to Amy about the way the other women perceived her was not just mean; if Amy had believed her, it could have created yet another schism in a team that was already divided.

Omarosa’s bad attitude was a problem again in the Trump Ice challenge. Project manager Heidi said that her biggest concern was how to keep Omarosa from hurting the team. She paired Omarosa with Amy because Amy was the only member of the team who could put up with her. When the two of them went out to sell water, Omarosa seriously tested Amy’s patience. The two of them agreed that Omarosa would do the marketing, and Amy would then talk about pricing. Yet time and time again, Omarosa would swoop in, talk numbers before Amy had a chance to, and would end up selling only a small amount of water to the customers. A frustrated Amy said afterwards that when two people work for an hour to sell only $15 worth of water, it’s a bad use of resources. She was so frustrated at the end of the day that she actually asked Heidi to not pair her with Omarosa again the next day. When a project manager has to devote so much time to keeping one employee from irritating the others, no one’s time is used effectively.