Fast forward six years from my not-so-near brush with fame and I’m living in San Francisco and among other things doing a little freelance work for MTV on advertiser strategy in emerging categories.
I’m in NY for the final readout to the top 20 MTV execs as part of a management retreat and, as you might expect it is being held at a super-dope downtown hotel. It turns out that on the evening I arrive the Celebrity Apprentice finale afterparty is being held in the hotel. Strangely, I wasn’t on the guest list.
But my sister Debbie was.
The final two contestants were Bret Michaels, playing for the American Diabetes Association where my sister was CFO and Holly Robinson Peete, playing for Autism Counts. The ADA knew ahead of time that Michaels was going to win, the CEO was unable to attend and they needed to pick another senior exec to represent the Association. It fell to my sister, who also has twin autistic boys, and she called me up and said “I need a date”. Fortunately, I was already going to be in the building.
Debbie ran into Holly RB right before they taped the live finale and shared her story. Holly had to return to make up for a little touch up following the cry and hug party she had with Debbie.
The afterparty was probably 90%+ industry and sponsors, with an active dance floor and high end food. Brett and Holly made brief appearances (Debbie got another hug party) and The Donald said a couple of dozen words of nothing. We had brief sightings of other contestants like Sharon Osbourne, Cyndi Lauper and Darryl Strawberry. Contestant Sinbad shut down the bar.