— Review: Celebrity Apprentice 2, Episode 1 //Featuring Tionne “T-boz” Watkins

Tionne Watkins, Celebrity Apprentice 2, Episode 1

When the news broke on October 1st 2008 on TMZ.com that Tionne “T-boz” Watkins, was going to be a candidate on Celebrity Apprentice 2, a mix of excitement and skepticism arose. While it was a great opportunity to see our beloved Tionne on NBC on a weekly basis, the dire consequences was another reason to label her as a washed up celebrity for taking the reality television route. In actuality, if there was a reality show fit for Tionne, Celebrity Apprentice was definitely it.

The premise of Celebrity Apprentice, is pitting two teams against each other in business challenges. Each week, the project manager of the winning team, wins money for their respective charities. For Tionne, this was naturally an opportunity to bring awareness to individuals with Sickle Cell, a disease that she has suffered with all her life. On the show, she is fighting to win money for the Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia, in which she is the national spokeswoman for… and with all that said, the prospect of seeing Tionne in the business setting was a downright treat for TLC fans.

On Celebrity Apprentice 2, Episode 1, the teams were split between the men and women, with the women naming themselves “Athena.” The challenge was to bake and sell cupcakes on the streets of New York City. The women won the challenge after selling $61,000 worth of cupcakes. When the totals were added up, Joan Rivers won $125,706 for her charity, as she was the project manager. While very entertaining, the show was disappointing for a fan of T-boz, as she was a background player in the episode, as her teammates Joan Rivers, Annie Duke and Brande Roderick took center stage. Did we see this coming? well yes—T-boz spoiled the episode herself stating that we were not going to see much of her in the first episode.

“You won’t see much of T-Boz in the first episode Sunday. She said she had a sinus infection and a 102 degree fever through that first challenge and she hardly said anything” (Ajc.com). Natalie Gulbis mentioned that issue in a recent interview, “The first day on the set she threw up on the street. She wiped off her shirt and jumped in the van like it was nothing.” It is unfortunate that Tionne was sick and she notes that she starts talking alot more by the 3rd episode.

T-boz revealed that while sick, she worked extremely hard, and a lot of what she did was not televised…

“Hi everyone. If you caught the first episode of the Celebrity Apprentice, let me know what you honestly think. I didn’t talk much that episode because I had the worst sinus infection and working out on the streets with a 102 temp. But what they didn’t show was how I sold $14,000 dollars worth of cup cakes. I was the 3rd person to sale the most cupcakes. LA Reid (Def JAM) came down a bought a $5,000 cupcake and Steve Rifkind also bought 1 cupcake for $5,000 dollars. And the other $4,000 came from me hustling on the streets getting people to buy them. But if you don’t keep up drama they don’t show you as much and they want to try and make it exciting tv. But if you do what you were supposed to like I did and work hard that’s called boring tv. Those who want to see more of the (more) popular Celebs should blog on the NBC Celebrity Apprentice blog site and vote. Tell them too show T-boz more. Ha Ha! As you can all see Annie Duke is an ass, yes I said it. Anyway I do start talking more around the 3rd challenge. Thank you for your support and I’ll give you an update on the behind the scenes as to what really happened every MON after the show airs” – T-boz. //View Tionne’s Blog!

 

The producers should be ashamed of themselves. We’ll count our loses and hope for the best in future episodes. It was great to see her on television again.

- AJ