‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ will never return to NBC with Donald Trump
Just to make this absolutely clear, there is a 0.000% chance that Donald Trump is ever going to be the host again of “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
Today at the NBC presentation at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, programming head Robert Greenblatt made it fairly clear that there is no way that the show is going to come back with Trump, whose comments about Mexican immigrants caused the network to cut ties with the Miss USA Pageant and other Trump projects. However, there is still a future for a show with another host. The series, which remains a personal favorite just for the unintentional comedy of it all, is not going to be a part of the 2015-16 season. It will return, though, at some point in the season to follow.
As for some of the rumored names, including George Lopez, Magic Johnson, Mark Cuban, and others, Greenblatt said that the majority of them out there are not true candidates. We know that Cuban has a Mark Burnett connection since he is the executive-producer of “Shark Tank,” but we’re not sure that Cuban has a real interest in following up Trump and he’s already very busy. Magic’s an inspirational figure and has the business skills to go along with the big name, but our question there is whether or not he would be good enough TV.
We feel like ultimately, the best choice for the show here would be to not necessarily cast based on the name, but find some ridiculously wealthy billionaire out there who you think you can cultivate into a TV star. The majority of the “Shark Tank” people other than Cuban were not known before they got aboard that show, and if you look back at other shows like “American Idol,” Simon Cowell wasn’t a star before that.
Right now, our favorite candidate is Steve Ballmer. Have you ever seen that guy at a Clippers game? He’s completely nuts, and he doesn’t have a primetime presence at the moment.
We’ll give you more updates on who could be the host as they start to come out. Also, sign up here to score some additional updates on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)