Here she comes again. Just when television screens around the country had begun repairing themselves following years of rancor, repulsion, and revulsion,Omarosa Manigualt Newmanis back to distort the picture all over again. One ofreality TV’smost recognized - and most polarizing - figures will make her return to the airwaves this week in the October 12th premiere of the E! network’sHouse of Villains, a sort ofThe Real World-meets-Big Brother-meets-The Surreal Life-meets-Night of the Living Deadsemi-celebrity competition series. The show, promoted as an amalgamation of reality TV’s most dastardly and reviled stars fighting to see who will be the last one sitting in the living room, is sure to be an ongoing and noisy stream of tirades, invective, accusations, and brawls. Of course, Omarosa, infamous for all of the above, is a natural fit for this experiment in just how low one can go for cash, prizes, and 15 more minutes of fame. It’s one thing to question whether viewers, in these times of extreme division and disharmony, really need a show that seems to have been created simply to amplify and celebrate malevolence. But to bring Omarosa, a personality whose unique brand of antagonism has crossed over from primetime TV to the very foundations of our government and back again, into the fold seems like an unnecessarily cruel and unrelenting twist of the knife into the already battered backs of the viewing public. Yes, Omarosa brings the drama and the ratings, but hasn’t she done more than her fair share of damage?
It would be easy to dismiss Omarosa as just another attention-seeking would-be somebody, and while she’s all that and more, she’s also a dangerously toxic individual, a person who, if packaged as a product on grocery shelves, would need a skull and crossbones graphic on her container to warn buyers of her poisonous contents. One of Omarosa’s fellowHouse of Villainsco-stars,Tiffany Pollard, the queen ofFlavor of LoveandI Love New York, is, in some ways, as virulent and venomous as Omarosa. But in the big scheme of things, Pollard is harmless - a blowhard, a fame chaser, an overgrown child who can be easily shrugged off as mildly entertaining. Not so with Omarosa, because she’s managed to impact so much more than television and social media. Omarosa crafted her persona to infiltrate the political process, making her mark among the denizens of the nation’s highest office, using her image as a troublemaker to influence public policy and perceptions. Regardless of one’s political leanings, when a reality star famous for wreaking havoc is able to bring all of that to the wheels that make our government turn, it’s alarming.
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Omarosa as The Great ‘Apprentice’ Villainess
Omarosa, the premiere villainess of the first season ofThe Apprenticein 2004, made a huge splash as the calculating and conniving ladder climber,touting her past credentialsas an aide to former Vice PresidentAl Goreduring the Clinton administration. Even then, she was viewed by her White House colleagues as more of a self-promoter than a public servant, and she was transferred multiple times within the administration before being dismissed altogether. But her clout as an Oval Office insider gave her more than her fair share of camera time onThe Apprentice,as she fought tooth and nail to win the grand prize of a prime position in one ofDonald Trump’s businesses. And when she was fired at end of the show’s 10th episode, she made sure she didn’t go quietly, repeatedly storming in and out of the manufactured “boardroom” to beg the boss for another chance. Omarosa’s carefully crafted theatrics at that moment ensured that she would remain more memorable than the show’s actual winner,Bill Rancic, and she was subsequently launched into reality television super stardom. Her appearance onThe Apprenticealso brought huge ratings, and Trump so loved Omarosa that he invited her back for two more installments of the franchise. In the meantime, Omarosa wrote a book,The Bitch Switch, a kind of “how to” on how women can succeed in business by knowing when to be horrible people. True to the book’s title, Omarosa flipped that switch to “on” when she appeared onThe Wendy Williams Showto promote her literary work and went head-to-head with the fiery host, being sure to play up her wicked persona for maximum exposure. She deliberately mixed it up again as a guest onBethenny Frankel’s short-lived talk show, shamelessly confessing to Frankel what she was all about. “You don’t stay a decade on television - in reality TV - without being smart and creating a brand that people want to see,” she told a beleaguered Frankel. “If the audience didn’t want to see Omarosa, they would never book me again, which is why you booked me to be on your show today.”
From Reality TV to the White House and Back Again
Had Omarosa simply continued to make the rounds of the talk and reality television circuit, sprinkling her anti-hero fairy dust over viewers along the way, she would have remained annoying, but still nothing more than a paper tiger out to earn a few bucks. All that changed when Trump became President of the United States and made Omarosa Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison in 2017. Omarosa was no longer a silly windbag. Now she was legitimate. Now she had the backing of the leader of the free world. Now her once-laughable rhetoric had the potential to be dangerous. True to form, Omarosa wasted no time when it came to voicing her opinions from Capitol Hill, warning Trump’s critics that they would ultimately “bow down” to him. After only one year, however, Omarosa was evicted from the White House for a series of official administrative abuses. Like her dismissal fromThe Apprentice, Omarosa’s exit from Trump’s administration was just as dramatic, complete with attempts to sneak back into the Oval Office and beg Trump for her job back before ultimately being escorted off the grounds.
Following this debacle, Omarosa made an attempt at redemption, denouncing the Trump regime completely and penning yet another book,Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House. Doing a complete 180-degree turn about how she viewed the man who made her famous and sanctioned her credibility, Omarosa attempted to re-brand herself as a compassionate woman with a deep, deep concern about the future of our country. Once again, she was everywhere, appearing on news programs, talk shows, and yes, more reality television, includingCelebrity Big Brother, where she routinely teased ominous anecdotes about what she saw and heard inside the hallowed halls of The People’s House (buy my book, anyone?). Her efforts at re-crafting her image didn’t quite take hold, though, and that’s likely because viewers couldn’t accept Omarosa as a suddenly authentic individual. How can someone go from being a reality TV caricature to a government official and staunch supporter of the president to being his sworn enemy, then back to being a reality television contestant in the course of a few short years and still expect to be taken seriously? While she may have picked up a few new fans following the publication of her book, which included bombshell allegations of lying, corruption, and racism at the legislative and executive levels, most viewers had had enough of Omarosa’s shape-shifting shenanigans. Her one-time supernova status had begun its inevitable implosion.
A Villainess We Don’t Need
But she’s back, and since the “new leaf” Omarosa persona didn’t quite seem to resonate, it looks like audiences will be treated toBitch SwitchOmarosa once more. The big question here is “why?” Why is a woman who’s spent the last two decades doing her best to cause damage on both a personal and political level still being given a platform for behavior that could at one time be called “nonsensical,” but can now best be labeled as “menacing?” And why would anyone want to watch a repeat performance by the woman who once proclaimed, “Everything that we say has consequences. I mean, words matter,” but who can’t seem to understand - or care about - the damaging consequences of the very words she speaks? It will be up to audiences to determine how far Omarosa will go during her stay in theHouse of Villains, and whether they’re ready for a repeat of the behaviors that may have been amusing in less disruptive times, but will now assuredly bring nothing but more of what no one needs - bitterness and bad blood. In a time when collective healing is needed, Omarosa is a person who isn’t.
