UGA alum and football great Herschel Walker hasn't watched a single episode of "Celebrity Apprentice," the NBC show he was just fired from Sunday night.
Of course, the episodes were taped months ago. Walker told me he has a good memory and recalls the details, even though he isn’t sure how it was edited.
He said he was disappointed he didn't end up winning money for his charity of choice, Alternative Community Development Services. (He lost the challenges in which he was project manager.) But he's proud he raised so much money in the fundraising challenges, second only to Annie Duke.
"I had fun," he said. "I had a lot of fun." At first, he figured he was busy with his food services company so he'd stick around a week for his friend Donald Trump. But once he got into it, he thought, "Let me stay here a while bit longer… I wanted to go all the way."
For the challenge Sunday, he selected a chicken dish for the Schwan's frozen food challenge (since it was the most popular meat dish among its customers). He also runs a food wholesale company which delivers plenty of chicken. Yet he said he stopped eating chicken a couple of years ago. Why? "Just to try something different," he said. Another reason: he has been working to get his weight down so he could compete in a mixed martial arts competition later this year.
“I eat a lot of vegetables and breads,” Walker said. “I quit red meat 15, 20 years ago. I don’t eat much chicken at all.” (Okay, so he does eat some chicken?) He admits his diet “isn’t the best in the world. I eat only one meal a day. It normally consists of bread or salad and soup. I love soup.” How about proteins? “I don’t think about proteins. I don’t know where I get my proteins from.”
Walker was frustrated trying to manage folks who weren't really his employees, which is why he had problems at times with argumentative Tom Green and Clint Black. "If I could kick their butts physically, maybe, but that's not the show. They wouldn't let me do that."
He felt bad about Denis Rodman and didn't feel like he defended him hard enough when everyone was getting on the basketball star's case about his possible alcoholism. "I wrote Denis a letter apologizing that I wasn't a better friend," Walker said. Walker hasn't heard back but hopes to talk to him during the finale on May 10.
Walker defended the dessert selection during the Schwan’s challenge which helped get him canned. “It wasn’t even my idea,” he noted. “Joan wanted a dessert.” Clint Black on the show argued against it, saying he was helping Walker prevent a potential problem.
During the show, Walker got peeved at Black. “Clint argues about everything,” Walker said. “If it’s not Clint Black, it’s not important. He always wanted to put his name out front. It’s not about you. It’s about him.” Walker’s personal philosophy was, “Get the job done. I don’t care who you are.”
He was shocked that Black wasn’t eliminated after the All Detergent viral video, which was Black’s lame joke about loving oneself a bit too much. “I was totally confused when Donald got rid of Khloe [Kardashian] instead,” he said. (As we were, too.)
Walker was a huge fan of Joan Rivers, who was on his team for a few challenges. "I absolutely loved her. She told me to call her mom." And overall, he said, "I got along with everybody. They called me the president because I was so politically correct."
And you’ll see Walker again on the show. He will take part in the final challenge, which begins airing on May 3 and will continue on the finale on the 10th.
“Don’t stop watching the show,” he said. “You’ll see something. People on the show respect me more. When you talk about getting the job done, that’s my thing. I get the job done!”
Post “Apprentice,” besides Ultimate Fighting, Walker said he has a yen for acting, playing a criminal on one of those “Law & Order” type shows.
Herschel, by the way, is CEO and owner of Savannah’s H Walker Enterprises, a minority owned and operated company that is the parent company to Renaissance Man Food Service, Herschel’s Famous 34 Appetizers and two other companies.
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