It only took until after Donald Trump officially became president-elect of the United States, but former The Apprentice producer Bill Pruitt has given his concerning take on why the bloke wound up in the Oval Office.
The short version: he’s admitted his peripheral role in Trump’s phenomenal / harrowing rise, but also reckons society and the modern media environment is a lil’ bit cooked for going along with it.
In an email exchange with Vanity Fair – a publication most certainly on Trump’s shitlist RN – the Emmy Award-winning Pruitt admitted his crew “not once” believed “this clown, this buffoon with the funny hair, would ever become a world leader.”
Still, they hoped “he and his bombastic nature” would go gangbusters on television, and they were proven right. The problem, as Pruitt sees it, is that “people are buying our crap.
“Make it entertaining, yes. But make it real. Give them the truth or pay the consequences.”
As for how much of Trump’s public persona was crafted via The Apprentice, Pruitt says “clever producers were putting forth a manufactured story about a billionaire whose empire was, in actuality, crumbling at the very same time he took the job, the salary, and ownership rights to do a reality show.”
“The Apprentice was a scam put forth to the public in exchange for ratings. We were “entertaining,” and the story about Donald Trump and his stature fell into some bizarre public record as “truth.””
We don’t know precisely how Trump’s finances look because he hasn’t released his tax returns, but Pruitt’s statements corroborate partial tax records indicating he’s previously taken losses of up to US $916M in a single year.
“What’s shocking to me is how quickly and decisively the world bought it.”
Read the whole message here.
Source: Vanity Fair.
Photo: Matthew Imaging / Getty.
