Omarosa Manigault (born Omaroseonee Manigault, February 15, 1974), known mononymously as Omarosa, is a reality game show and reality show personality.

A former political consultant who worked for then-Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton Administration, she was a contestant on the first season of Donald Trump's original American version of The Apprentice, and returned for the series' seventh season, the first series of its TV series sequel, Celebrity Apprentice. In October 2012 it was announced that she will participate in an All-Stars edition of the show which will commence airing on March 3, 2013, making her the only contestant in the history of The Apprentice format to compete in three seasons.

Early life

Manigault was born in Youngstown, Ohio; her father is of Yoruba descent. After graduating from The Rayen School in Youngstown, she earned a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism in 1996 at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. She later moved to Washington, D.C. in order to attend Howard University, where she pursued both a master's degree and a Ph.D. in communications.

Manigault's father was murdered when she was seven years old. In 2011, Manigault's brother, Jack was also murdered.

Career

Manigault worked in the office of then-Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton Administration as Deputy Associate Director of Presidential Personnel.

In August 2009, Manigault enrolled at the United Theological Seminary in Ohio to pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree. She received a preacher's license in February 2011 from her church (Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California) and was formally ordained on February 27, 2012. She is currently finishing her degree at Payne Theological Seminary.

Television career

Manigault first came to public attention in 2004 after becoming a participant on NBC's reality TV Series, The Apprentice, produced by Mark Burnett, and starring business mogul Donald Trump. With her controversial behavior, she soon became the "woman America loved to hate" and was named by E! as reality TV's No. 1 bad girl. However, Manigault claims the show's producers manipulated the footage to make her look like the villain, and said, "These shows are constructed. They don't happen, nor do they portray actual reality. They are constructed reality." She added, "Historically, blacks have been portrayed negatively on reality television. We don't come across well. You've got to start looking and saying, 'Is that really how all blacks are?' Because they are trying to say that this is representative of our people." African-American Kwame Jackson was runner-up in the show, his second place finish was partly due to his failure to garner effective cooperation from Omarosa.

Since her participation on the first season of The Apprentice, Manigault has appeared on more than 20 other reality shows, including VH1's fifth season of The Surreal Life, NBC's Fear Factor (coming in fourth place in the final challenge), and Oxygen's prank show Girls Behaving Badly. She has also been a guest on several talk shows, including a controversial appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. It was on Oprah's show where the often contentious Manigault accused fellow Apprentice participant Ereka Vetrini of calling her the "n-word", a claim Vetrini has denied. Shortly after the Oprah fiasco, Omarosa infamously no-showed her would-be guest appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show after she reportedly objected upon seeing a polygraph machine.

In January 2008, Manigault was invited to the first season of The Apprentice's sequel show, Celebrity Apprentice. In this, she became the only former Apprentice participant to be invited back to the series. On Celebrity Apprentice, she quickly became embroiled in a personal feud with Piers Morgan. She was eventually fired in the tenth episode, after serving as the project manager of the team that, according to Trump, suffered "the biggest slaughter in the history of The Apprentice" in a challenge to sell artwork against a team led by Morgan. She raised $49 in total for her charity.

In June 2010, Manigault and Donald Trump collaborated again to create a new dating show called The Ultimate Merger, which included R&B singer and producer Al B. Sure! as one of the contestants. The show aired on TV One.

Relationships

In 2000, she married Aaron Stallworth and changed her last name to Manigault-Stallworth. They separated in 2005 and later divorced, and she reverted to her original last name.

On August 13, 2010, Manigault confirmed that she was dating actor Michael Clarke Duncan, whom she had first met in the produce section of a Whole Foods supermarket. In July 2012, she found that Duncan was suffering a heart attack. She is rumored to have found him in cardiac arrest, performed CPR, and revived him, saving his life. This was not confirmed by fire officials, though they did confirm other facts of the incident. He never fully recovered from the heart attack, and died on September 3, 2012.

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