Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth: She’s Back, and She’s Still Shameful

No sooner had the most recent episode of The Apprentice (and you can catch my recap of it here) aired than my inbox was flooded with emails from readers. They all asked the same question: Omarosa has already been inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame once, but doesn’t she deserve a second mention for her shameful behavior as one of Kwame’s employees?

The answer, of course, is unquestionably yes. Let’s take a look at why.

After Kwame and Bill were made the final two candidates, Donald Trump had them choose a staff to help them complete the final task. Kwame was in charge of organizing a Jessica Simpson concert at the Trump Taj Mahal. For his team, he selected Troy, Heidi, and Omarosa. The team immediately set out to work, Kwame divided up responsibilities, and Omarosa was excited to be the one handling logistics. She told Kwame, “We’ve got to make sure that you shine.”

One of my readers suggested to me that what Omarosa must have meant was, “We’ve got to make sure that you shine Mr. Trump’s shoes by the end of this task, because that’s the only job he’s going to give you after the way I plan to botch this.” Indeed, that was the last moment Omarosa did anything positive for Kwame.

That night, Team Kwame was having dinner when Omarosa got a phone call from Diane, who works in the Taj Mahal’s transportation office. Diane told Omarosa that it was very important to make sure transportation from the airport for Jessica and her band was arranged. Omarosa told Diane she was in the middle of dinner, and asked her to take care of it. She then hung up the phone.

Diane obviously anticipated that there might be some transportation problems, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of tracking Omarosa down at dinner to tell her about it. And if it was a problem that she could have solved herself, as Omarosa asked her to do, again, why would she call Omarosa in the evening at a restaurant? Why wouldn’t she have just taken care of it?

The simple fact of the matter was that Omarosa didn’t want to have her dinner interrupted to deal with this potential problem. She decided it was more important to have a nice meal than to do her job.

Maybe her “concussion” was acting up again. We all know that Omarosa’s “head injury” demands nice meals.

But it got worse. When Omarosa returned to the table, Troy asked her what the call was about. Wouldn’t you want to know? Omarosa not only refused to tell him, but chose the nastiest possible way to answer, “I’m not going to have that conversation.” Troy persisted, but Omarosa still wouldn’t answer.

By refusing to tell the rest of Team Kwame what the phone call was about, she was not only rude, but also irresponsible. Omarosa should have told her boss about this potential problem. Just saying, “Oh, Diane is worried about transportation, but I’ve taken care of it,” would have been a sufficient answer. But instead, Omarosa chose to hide the problem from Kwame.

The next day, a panicked Diane called Kwame. The Taj Mahal had sent a van to the airport to pick up the band, but they were nowhere to be found. Diane told Kwame that she had called Omarosa the night before to talk about this potential snag. Omarosa got on the phone with Diane, wondered how this “misunderstanding” occurred, and hung up with no plan in action to solve the problem.

Kwame asked Omarosa if Diane had called at dinner the night before. Omarosa evaded the question by saying that she had tried to call Diane before dinner, but that she wasn’t in her office. Kwame pressed further: what was the phone call she took at dinner? Omarosa told him that it was Diane’s office saying she’d left for the night. There was no emergency.

So, Omarosa, when confronted by her boss about a problem that was her fault, lied to avoid responsibility. Without question, Omarosa’s conversation at dinner was with Diane herself, and Diane certainly never implied in any way that the issue was no big deal. She was concerned, and was concerned enough to track Omarosa down to talk about it. Because Omarosa did absolutely nothing to solve the potential problem when Diane alerted her to it, that potential problem blew up into a crisis. And because Omarosa didn’t tell her boss Kwame about the issue, he was unable to make the decision to handle it differently.

The logistics problems didn’t stop there. The following night, Omarosa got another phone call from Diane. Jessica Simpson herself was nowhere to be found. And how did Omarosa handle this problem? Did she get to work doing her job of ironing out the logistics? No, she gleefully interrupted Kwame’s meal and ordered him to “report to the office.” The very fact that she demanded that her boss report to her shows an incredible disrespect for Kwame. But it got worse. When Kwame arrived at the office, Omarosa told him that the logistics were a disaster, and that it was up to him to solve the problem. Later, Omarosa blamed the crisis on the fact that Kwame wasn’t a more hands-on manager.