Interesting choice. Donald Trump told Howard Stern during a July 2008 interview that he wanted to cast O.J. Simpson on season 9 of The Apprentice in 2009. According to the controversial Republican presidential nominee, at the time, NBC execs understandably “went totally crazy” at the suggestion.
“Why would you put him on The Apprentice?” Stern asked Trump while discussing the former NFL player — who was famously acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1995 only to be placed behind bars for 33 years for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping incident in Las Vegas.
“In your business, there’s a thing called ratings,” Trump told Stern. “And, you know, you can come up with a cure for cancer — I found out a lot about your business, because, hey, I’m the biggest star. I’m now the biggest star … So I know that if you come up with a cure for cancer, and if you put it on, and if it doesn’t get ratings, they will not broadcast it. So, you come with a cure for a disease — no good,” he added. “Now, I know this: If I put O.J. on — huge ratings. Oh, forget it, 35 million people.”
According to Trump, “O.J. would have done the show,” but the former Apprentice host wouldn’t divulge if he ever personally pitched the idea to Simpson. “I can’t get into the details,” he told Stern.
Although Trump was onboard for the disgraced athlete as a cast member on the show, the businessman told Stern that he cut off ties with Simpson after he “realized [Simpson] killed his wife.”
“I don’t like people that kill their wives,” Trump told Stern during the interview. “Does that make sense? Does that make me a disloyal person? I like women. I mean, I don’t even like guys that beat up women — you get a lot of those guys,” Trump said.
Stern then asked him if he’s ever “beaten a woman in a rage.”
“No, I’m a lover not a fighter,” Trump told the radio host. “Great lover, poor fighter.”
For the record, the network — which fired Trump last year — was never onboard with the idea. “NBC representatives have never considered O.J. Simpson for the next season of The Apprentice, nor will,” an NBC spokesperson told Reuters in April 2008. (In 2006, prior to being locked behind bars, Simpson starred in an unaired reality show titled Juiced.)
The audio is just the latest to have resurfaced amid Trump’s unending supply of controversial remarks.
As previously reported by Us, Trump came under fire after audio of him bragging about trying to ‘f–k’ married women and grabbing their genitals was posted online by The Washington Post. And in a New York Times report published on Wednesday, multiple women accuse the TV personality of having inappropriately touched them years ago. Trump’s senior communications advisor, Jason Miller, has since denied the report, telling Us in a statement that the NYT report is “fiction.” Trump also demanded a retraction, but on Thursday the NYT issued a statement standing by its report.
