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February 18, 2005 in Features
So, is Omarosa calling the kettle prejudiced?
FORMER “APPRENTICE” CONTESTANT Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth is slamming the NBC reality show for stereotyping her and other black contestants.
“Once you start looking at how all the black men are lazy and laid-back and nonassertive and nonaggressive and all the black women are quite the opposite, I think there is a pattern,” she says.
Her comments came at a press conference promoting another reality show, “Fear Factor,” in which she’ll appear on Monday.
“What African-American man have we shown to be lazy?” replied “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett. “None of them. Kwame almost won the whole thing.”
Kwame Jackson was the runner-up in the show’s first season. In the second season, the only black male contestant was among the final four.
Burnett advised Omarosa to “take responsibility for your own behavior and stop disparaging other African-Americans.”
C’mon, KFC – chicken?
Rap mogul and activist Russell Simmons has joined the Rev. Al Sharpton and Pamela Anderson in protesting how Kentucky Fried Chicken treats its poultry.
Simmons reportedly has filmed an ad “showing some of the very worst abuses chickens undergo,” and is threatening to release it and call for a boycott if KFC does not mend its “grossly inhumane” slaughter practices.
A KFC spokesman says the company keeps to “the same standards that all our competitors use to insure humane treatment around the country.”
Hello, Phat Joe
Rapper Fat Joe says an Oprah Winfrey episode on weight loss led him to drop 80 pounds, thanks to a strict low-carb diet and exercise with a personal trainer.
“Being Puerto Rican and not being able to eat rice and beans – it’s hard,” says the former 370-pounder.
Oh, who gives a rip?
Irish singer Sinead O’Connor is returning to music after two years of retirement – but not the pop scene.
“I want to at least aim my records at a more spiritualized market,” she says, adding: “Religious songs with bad words, that’s the best way I could describe it.”
O’Connor is infamous for tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992.
George goes down for the count
Meanwhile, British ‘80s pop fixture George Michael is hanging it up.
Says he: “I don’t really think that there is anyone in the modern pop business who I feel I want to spar with.”
Isn’t it patriotic – don’t cha think?
Canadian singer Alanis Morrisette has officially been sworn in as a U.S. citizen.
“America has been really great to me and I have felt welcomed since the day I came here,” says the “Ironic” singer, who will maintain dual citizenship.
No boa for Pink
This just in: The planned Janis Joplin biopic starring Pink, reported here Wednesday, has been called off.
The birthday bunch
Actor Jack Palance is 84. Actor George Kennedy is 80. Author Toni Morrison is 74. Movie director Milos Forman is 73. Artist/singer Yoko Ono is 72. Actress Cybill Shepherd is 55. Singer Juice Newton is 53. Actor John Travolta is 51. Game show hostess Vanna White (“Wheel of Fortune”) is 48. Actress Greta Scacchi is 45. Actor Matt Dillon is 41. Rapper Dr. Dre is 40. Actress Molly Ringwald is 37. Actor Tyrone Burton (“The Parent ‘Hood”) is 26.
Your week 
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