In an apparent case of the pot calling the kettle black, bombastic The Apprentice star Donald Trump, reportedly feeling that she's developed a swelled head, has fired Carolyn Kepcher, the Trump National Golf Club executive who has served as one of his Apprentice advisors since the NBC reality show first premiered in January 2004.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Mr. Trump wishes her the best," said Trump spokesman Jim Dowd told The Associated Press in a brief comment issued Thursday.
"After 11 years with the Trump Organization, Donald and I had different visions for my future role in the company," Kepcher said in her own statement. "Donald has been an extraordinary boss and a great mentor over the years, and I will always be grateful."
According to the New York Post (which first broke word of Kepcher's firing), Kepcher, who lives in the New York area and did not participate in The Apprentice: Hollywood, the already filmed sixth The Apprentice edition that moved the show out of New York for the first time ever, was let go earlier this week.
"She became a prima donna," an insider told the Post. "Being on The Apprentice went to her head. She was no longer focused on business. She was giving speeches for $25,000 and doing endorsements."
ADVERTISEMENT
According to the Post's hatchet job report, Kepcher recently committed the apparent cardinal sin of being "off on a trip to make a speech" when Trump tried to reach her. In another apparently egregious incident, Kepcher -- who had served as chief operating officer for Trump's two New York and New Jersey golf courses -- reportedly "didn't seem to know the prices on any of the merchandise" when she gave a tour of the New Jersey course's pro shop.
Given that The Apprentice: Hollywood's Los Angeles-based season required all of the show's participants to remain in Los Angeles throughout the show's five week production schedule, neither the 38-year-old Kepcher, who is married with two young children, or George Ross, the 78-year-old longtime real-world Trump advisor that has also doubled as The Donald's other Apprentice advisor, participated in its production. Instead, adult Trump children Ivanka and Donald Jr. and others served as Trump's The Apprentice: Hollywood advisors.
"George has been around a long time. He's seen everything. He didn't get excited even when women on the street started screaming when they saw him on his way to work," another source told the Post. "But Carolyn took it very seriously. She thought she was a freaking movie star."
However according to the newspaper, despite her dismissal, Trump and Kepcher remain friendly (although one might imagine that might have now changed given the Post's publication of such a heavily Trump-slanted story.) "Trump told her what she had to do was take some time off and spend it with her family, and then get another job," an insider told the paper. "They have a great relationship."
The Apprentice: Hollywood will premiere in January and air as part of NBC's new post-Sunday Night Football Sunday night schedule.