Comedian, actress and television writer Carol Leifer became the first celebrity eliminated from The Celebrity Apprentice's third season during Sunday's night's two-hour premiere.
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Leifer was eliminated after "Tenacity" -- the name the season's seven women gave their team -- lost the competition's first task to the men, who dubbed themselves "Rock Solid."
Each team was allowed to chose the other's project manager for the season's first task, which required the teams to raise as much charity donations as possible while running a New York City burger diner for three hours. Rock of Love star Brett Michaels was selected the men's project manager while musician Cyndi Lauper filled the same role for the women.
Given their team included Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone, the men appeared to have an advantage in the kitchen, however Stone's biggest contribution seemed to come in the front of the house -- where he decided that using a high-priced menu which featured $100 hamburgers and a $250 truffles and risotto dish would be the best use of the diner's limited sitting.
"We've only got 36 seats, so if we serve a $10 burger to them we only make 300 bucks, but if we sell three burgers at $100, we make the same amount of money," Stone explained. "If we can't do that we should give up now."
The women took the opposite approach, deciding to go with a cheaper menu which featured $25 burgers that required much higher customer volume and stuck with it even after The Apprentice advisor Ivanka Trump's suggested that they may want to reconsider the plan.
"So the idea is more for volume then?" she asked the women.
"When you look [outside] here, it's working people that will mainly be coming in other than our contacts, our personal contacts," America's Got Talent judge Sharon Osbourne replied.
"Well you have no diversity of price point, so I understand you don't want to price people off the menu," Trump said.
"Maybe there's one item on the menu that we make a very specific higher price point," actress Holly Robinson Peete said, prompting the women to come up with an additional $100 "signature" burger.
Leifer's biggest task contribution appeared to come when she unsuccessfully suggested the burgers include fruit salad instead of french fries, which she considered harder to prepare.
"You don't want to squelch anybody's creativity but it's not about making food, it's about raising money," Leifer vented after Lauper rejected her idea. "As far as I'm concerned, those women are some dumb bitches."
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Leifer was subsequently tasked with standing out on the sidewalk and giving out flyers during the team's lunch service -- and decided to remain there even when it became clear the restaurant's line already contained far more customers than the women would be able to handle.
Frustrated by the behavior, Peete eventually took it upon herself to ask Leifer to come back into the restaurant and help the remaining women, who were struggling to service all their customers.
"I took the initiative to tell her you shouldn't be handling out any more flyers, can you come in and take care of the counter [because Cyndi didn't]," Peete said.
After the task ended and the teams returned to the boardroom, they learned that the men had raised $57,905 -- far more than the women's $39,559 figure which also included a bonus $10,000 second-season The Celebrity Apprentice winner Joan Rivers awarded the team as part of a surprise twist.
During their subsequent boardroom session, the women were all initially hesitant to say who was responsible for the loss and should fired from the team, frustrating The Apprentice star Donald Trump.
"I wish you people could answer the (expletive) damn (expletive) question! Everyone's like 'Oh, they're all so wonderful.' It's all (expletive)! You all know an answer!" Trump shouted.
After being pressed, most of the women suggested Leifer or Lauper.
However Leifer attempted to defend herself by insisting she had skills the women would need for future tasks.
"This team is going to need me because of my creative potential. I'm a comedian and I'm a television producer and writer," she said.
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"The fact is everybody really did a pretty good job and there was no 'loser,' there was nobody bad," Trump said. "It puts me in a very awkward position because I have to fire somebody and your team really did good. I mean you raised a lot of money and won the $10,000 bonus but [the men] beat you."
"Somebody has to go, it's not fair, and the only thing I can say is most of the members of the team felt that Carol should go and therefore I have no choice -- Carol, you're fired!"
(Photo credit Ali Goldstein/NBC) About The Author: Steven Rogers
