'The Celebrity Apprentice' star Donald Trump fires Patricia Velasquez

The Celebrity Apprentice star Donald Trump fired Patricia Velasquez during Sunday night's sixth episode of the celebrity competition's fifth season.


Trump fired the actress and model after her Forte women's team lost the season's sixth task, which required Forte and Unanimous, the men's team, to each create and throw a cocktail party to promote Crystal Light's newest two flavors "peach bellini" and "pomtini." The parties were judged on creativity, brand messaging and the overall more "fun" party theme or concept.

"My advice to the remaining contestants is to always be honest. Back-stabbing and lying, it's for me, an example of exactly what I don't want to do with my life. I definitely don't think that Mr. Trump made the right decision, but I think that being here and the opportunity to show him my Wayuu Taya Foundation and talk about what I've done with the creation of this charity, is such an incredible opportunity that I cannot be nothing but thankful," Patricia said following her ouster.

The Celebrity Apprentice's sixth fifth-season episode began following the fifth broadcast's elimination of Tia Carrere with Trump meeting with the season's remaining celebrity cast members and revealing what the cocktail parties would entail and asking who would be each team's project manager.

The women's team Forte -- which was comprised of Patricia; The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice; comedienne Lisa Lampanelli; former Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza; All About Aubrey and former Making the Band star Aubrey O'Day; and singer, actress and former Skating with Celebrities participant Debbie Gibson -- had Aubrey step up to be their project manager because she had experience planning many successful parties in the past. 


The men's team Unanimous -- which consisted of former talk show host Arsenio Hall; singer and former American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken; actor and former The Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno; magician, comedian and former Dancing with the Stars participant Penn Jillette; rock star and former Growing Up Twisted star Dee Snider; and American Chopper star Paul Teutul Sr. -- ended up deciding Clay should take on the role of project manager because he'd get the chance to prove his leadership skills.

The winning team would receive $50,000 for the charity of its project manager's choice.

Both teams worked extremely well together overall but encountered some small problems along the way in throwing their parties. Forte team member Patricia had created signs which featured a larger "pomtini" word than "Crystal Light" itself. She failed to run all the signage by Aubrey because she often secluded herself from the rest of the team, and that left Aubrey a bit disappointed with how the brand messaging came out.

Meanwhile, the men's team had trouble getting people into their party at first because they didn't call enough people whom they knew themselves. In addition, Clay and Penn had some tension between them because Clay found Penn to be very "condescending" and avoided working very closely with him.

The women's team created a party under the "Pomtini Garden of Delights" theme in which they made a large room resemble the Garden of Eden with waterfalls and images of nature, while selling the idea that Crystal Light's consumers could satisfy their healthy desires. The men's team worked with a beach concept and turned their room into a scene with sand, umbrellas and games -- promoting the idea that "life is a peach," a pun on "life is a beach."


After both teams planned and executed their cocktail parties, they met with Trump in the boardroom and he discussed each of the project's flaws. Forte didn't have enough promotion of the phrase "Crystal Light" itself in the graphics, while the men's team also lacked in their brand messaging because the signage got drowned out on the inside of the room.

Although both Aubrey and Clay deemed their teams as the winners, Trump then revealed Unanimous as the champion. The Crystal Light executives loved how fun, active and engaging their party was and felt they did a fantastic job. As a result, Clay received $50,000 for his the National Inclusion Project charity.

The men then left the boardroom and the women began discussing who was ultimately at fault for the party's failure. Mostly everyone had agreed Aubrey shouldn't get fired because she was one of the most creative members of the team and always put a 100% percent effort into every task regardless of whether she was assigned as project manager.

Aubrey told Trump she wanted to take Dayana and Patricia back into the boardroom with her because she claimed Dayana was the weakest member of the team going forward but Patricia was ultimately responsible for the graphics and signage. Aubrey told Trump he couldn't fire the creative person for being creative, but Dayana argued Aubrey's concepts had lost them all of the tasks except for two.

Aubrey counteracted Dayana's point by saying they would have lost all the challenges had Dayana come up with the ideas, insisting Dayana either came up with no ideas or bad ones in general. While Aubrey and Dayana kept complimenting each other for being wonderful, nice people, they both battled in the boardroom for their positions.


Aubrey suggested Dayana was essential for and best at execution but the creative aspects to the tasks were more difficult to establish, therefore arguing that Dayana's skills were not necessary for the team's success going forward. Dayana said Aubrey came up with an idea that failed time and time again and was ultimately responsible for the task as project manager.

While the girls fought for Trump's approval, Patricia was overlooked for being in charge of the graphics -- which was the only negative complaint the Crystal Light executives really had for Forte's "polished" cocktail party. Trump then zoned in on Patricia for her mistakes. She argued that Aubrey approved all of Patricia's signage ideas, but Aubrey insisted she had not because Patricia liked to alienate herself at times from the rest of the team.

However, Aubrey fought for Patricia and told Trump that her abilities were more useful to the team as a whole than Dayana, because Dayana allegedly was just sent to do busy work most of the time. Despite Aubrey's firmly-presented case, Trump was more focused on Patricia's role in the team's loss.

"The printing mistake Patricia made, what about that?" Trump asked Aubrey.

"I believe that Patricia contributed a lot. She always does. I think that she's a stronger playing moving forward than Dayana," Aubrey replied.


"But she made a bigger mistake in this particular task," Trump confirmed.

"But she's a more useful player moving forward," Aubrey argued.

Dayana, labeled a "worker bee" by advisor Donald Trump Jr. had been brought back in the boardroom for a third time but told Trump she wasn't ready to give up because she didn't take anything personally and tried her best to show off her strengths. Patricia tried to convince Trump that Aubrey had the final say over all her branding and it was not her mistake, but Aubrey continued to disagree.

"You didn't lose this because of Dayana," Trump said.

"We lost because of Patricia if the issue was the Crystal Light logos," Aubrey explained.


"Look, the fact is the executives loved the party, but they didn't like the details. Unfortunately, and I think she's the most elegant woman, the details were done by Patricia. Patricia, you're fired," Trump said.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski