'Celebrity Apprentice': The Half-Naked Edition

What's hotter: Trace Adkins shirtless, with two 20-something male models in low-slung blue jeans in the background, their backs to the camera? Or Carol Alt looking naked under the sheets, with a much younger man crawling up behind her and playfully biting her shoulder?

Can't answer that one, at least from the executive perspective, because team Empresario chickened out this week and let Stephen Baldwin -- known for his religious conservatism -- declare a shirtless country-music star too risque for Redbook. This, though, we can say: Omarosa definitely thought Trace was hot.

The task this week was to create a four-page advertising spread for a new Dial bodywash (which includes yogurt among its ingredients -- a concept that more grossed me out, personally, than anything else). The ad was slated to run in Redbook, so the teams had two taskmasters to please: the Dial execs and the magazine's editor.

Trump revealed his own concern over the lopsided male-female ratio from the get-go, warning the women that the PM is the most likely person to get fired on the losing team and, well, he'll be a bit embarrassed if he gets forced into firing another lady and leaving behind six guys and a lone woman to play out the string.

Once she heard the assignment, though, Alt -- who has been on the cover of Redbook five times and is a no-brainer to understand the target audience -- was having none of that and immediately stepped up to the plate.

So did Omarosa. Oops, not really. Omarosa, she of the marketing background and the obviously stronger insight into what appeals to women, immediately whispered to her teammates that she wanted the PM gig upon hearing the project . . . then immediately started back-pedaling the minute she heard Trump suggest that the PM was seriously on the block this time around. While Trump was still talking, she was attempting to unload the job on Tito Ortiz, who foolishly agreed to do it under the gun.

With urging from Piers (who couldn't suggest more strongly or more often that women of that certain Redbook age consider great sex a significant part of their lives), Alt agreed to be the model for Team Hydra's photo shoot. Which, again, was a no-brainer. Here you have a woman who is older than the average Redbook reader (37, we're told), with fantabulous skin and supermodel credentials. Hel-lo? Then they put her in a photo montage of the perfect Redbook reader's life -- a.k.a., she has this truly gorgeous baby who snuggles up all cute-cute on her shoulder in one pic, but she still has time to take luxurious bubble baths and tumble in the sheets with her hottie young husband.

Really, what Redbook-reading woman wouldn't have that fantasy? And what Dial exec wouldn't salivate at the idea of getting a bona fide supermodel to advertise the company's product?

Empresario banked on the fact that Redbook readers love country and middle America and so in this task, Trace officially took over the lead from Lennox Lewis in terms of being the hot guy pimped-out for the project. The team chose a country-desert theme, with Trace playing his guitar to a woman lazing in a bathtub (but ultimately without the much-fought-over shot of Trace shirtless, which was Omarosa's baby).

While she kept her nasty in check this week, Omarosa proved she is still the pro of all pros at telling bold-faced lies in the boardroom with such coolness that it must drive her teammates nuts. In this case, she conveniently edited out the fact that she slithered like a snake away from the possible PM assignment to save her own skin, pinning everything she could on Tito.

And Tito, well, he's either incredibly upfront or incredibly stupid, because even after he heard her say that -- and weakly fought back -- he still told Trump that Omarosa was the most valuable team member on the project. Huh? Trump's only real alternative seemed to be the possibility of firing Omarosa for being 0-2 in previous PM stints and not taking on a role that she seemed best-suited to.

So Tito was toast.

Now there are six. In the catbird seat: 1. For Hydra, it's Alt, who did double-duty this week and blew away Trump; and 2. for team Empresario, it's Trace, who seems all but bulletproof now.

Next week, it's pretty safe to say that Omarosa has to be PM and has to get a win. On the other team, it might behoove Lennox Lewis to be a little more proactive.

But who cares about that? The best part of the night came in the scenes from next week's show, when it appears that Omarosa will trade in her highly distasteful attacks on Piers via his children for a new approach. Now, she's going to try to get under his skin by harping on his sexuality (the direct quote from the preview: "I think he's in the closet."

Oh, Omarosa, honey: Didn't you learn anything the last time around?

-- JENNIFER FREY

Jennifer Frey  |  February 29, 2008; 8:53 AM ET Celebrity Apprentice
Previous: 'Project Runway': Tim Gunn Tells All | Next: 'The Wire': It's Getting Late in the Games

Posted by: tomtildrum | February 29, 2008 12:38 PM

Posted by: SS MD | February 29, 2008 2:41 PM

Posted by: tafan1 | March 2, 2008 10:41 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.