“Terminator” star Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he is departing from NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” citing producer (and, incidentally, President of the United States) Donald Trump as his reason for leaving. Then Trump responded to the announcement saying that Schwarzenegger is not leaving the show “voluntarily,” but was instead “fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me.”
Trump then said that this was a “sad end” to a “great show” (well, that’s debatable), but it may not totally be over. NBC hasn’t said whether or not the show has been renewed for further seasons with a different host, but it hasn’t necessarily been cancelled yet.
The competitive reality show is produced by Mark Burnett, who in around 2003, created “The Apprentice” and brought Donald Trump into the limelight and probably led us to his Presidency, so thanks for that, Mark. The Donald still gets paid royalties from the show, despite his salary and mortgage and everything being paid for by the American taxpayer.
Schwarzenegger says he left because of ‘baggage’
In the statement Schwarzenegger released following his departure from “Celebrity Apprentice,” he noted how he has “loved every second of working with NBC and Mark Burnett,” as well as “everyone” else involved, “from the Celebrities to the crew to the marketing department,” saying they were all “a straight ten” when he worked with them.
He said he would be happy to work with them all again on a different show “that doesn’t have this baggage,” as in the baggage of being produced by the angry, racist, sexist, Islamophobic, divisive, controversial President.
Schwarzenegger told Empire that if he was asked to return to “Celebrity Apprentice,” he would “decline” the offer.
He says that viewers have “a bad taste” given Trump’s involvement in the show and as a result, they don’t want to watch it as it is a way of supporting him and putting money in his money. Schwarzenegger acknowledged that the country is divided in the age of Trump and added that, sadly, “this show got caught up in all that division.”
Trump said back in January that the ratings for “Celebrity Apprentice” were in and Schwarzenegger had been “swamped” and “destroyed” in comparison to what Trump himself called “the ratings machine, DJT.” Oh, how beautifully modest of him.
“The ratings machine” is the reason no one wants to watch the show, because he wants to ban Muslims from entering America and he wants to keep refugees out, and that rubs a lot of NBC viewers the wrong way. It’s not Schwarzenegger’s fault at all.
Schwarzenegger responded angrily
Schwarzenegger has responded to Trump’s comments, refreshingly taking him to task on his “alternate facts,” advising the President to “think about hiring a new joke writer and a fact checker.” Ooh, burn. That ought to rile Trump. Let’s see where this goes.
