position with Trump Industries, the Iranian-American contestant on the NBC show “The Apprentice” was fired and lost from her chance for a job with multi-millionaire entrepreneur Donald Trump.
When the show first began, Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, 29, quickly stood out from the initial 16 candidates as the contestant with the strongest personality. Several times, Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the Trump Industries CEO, commented on Mahsa’s personality, and not very positively. In one instance, Ivanka said, “Mahsa, you‘re a very strong person and you have very, very strong opinions about all of the other project managers.”
In a subsequent episode, Ivanka told her father that she would fire Mahsa. “Fire her for being so unprofessional. Her voice. Yelling….Mahsa has a terrible attitude,” Ivanka said.
But during the most recent episode, Ivanka wasn’t the one critical of Mahsa.
Mahsa’s teammate on the women’s team, Brandi, explained her view of her Iranian-American teammate.
“I don’t respect Mahsa,” Brandi said. “I think she’s a terrible team player. I’m sick of hearing her talk. She doesn’t have anything interesting to say so shut up,” Brandi said about Mahsa.
Shortly after, Mahsa was praising her teammate Stephanie, asking the men’s team if they wanted to know their sales numbers from the prior week in an effort to show that her friend Stephanie had outsold many of the other girls.
But Brandi questioned why Mahsa would give the men’s team those numbers even before the two teams had met in Trump’s boardroom—at which time Trump himself was to give the results.
“Why would you even tell him that? Brandi said. “What benefit does that give our team?… Why would you do that? Just shut the f_ _ _ up.”
“Did you tell me to shut the f_ _ _ up? You shut the f_ _ _ up!” Mahsa said in shock while Brandi tried to recover.
“No, we need to shut the f_ _ _ up,” Brandi said, retreating.
But Mahsa wasn‘t about to hold back her feelings about her teammate. “Brandi, your passive aggressiveness…” Mahsa started before getting cut off by Brandi.
“I backed you as a project manager [two weeks ago] when I shouldn’t have because I told you that I would,” Brandi said, adding, “We lost because you’re a terrible director.”
Despite a clear split in the group between Mahsa and Stephanie and the other three girls on the team, Mahsa was still convinced she was going to outlast all of her teammates.
“Brandi is very smart at the game and I think Brandi is trying to get rid of me in the competition. But I’m ready for a fight. These people are not my friends. None of them. There’s no one you can trust,” Mahsa said.
Mahsa attributed her tough personality to her job as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York, but her hard personality caused many of her teammates to see her more as a competitor than a teammate.
Mahsa stepped down as assistant DA after her employers realized her leave of absence from work was so that she could compete on “The Apprentice.” When judges and members of juries began recognizing her from the show, she stepped down.
This week, both teams were tasked with producing parts of a musical in an attempt to get funding from potential investors. Each team was presented with only a score and script and were judged on the marketing materials that each team created and the overall presentation of the backer’s audition. The musical, entitled, “Darling,” was to be a dark rendition of Peter Pan reset in 1929 Boston.
The project manager of the women’s team for this task was Liza. Steuart was the project manager for the men’s team.
Mahsa and Stephanie seemed to be teamed up against the rest of the women’s team, and were tasked with creating the musical flier. But despite the fact that Liza, the project manager, wanted the flier to be colorful, Mahsa and Stephanie produced a black and white flier.
“I definitely think that Stephanie and Mahsa, they’re trying to set it up that if the printing doesn’t get done well, I’m the one to fall for it,” Liza said. “So if we don’t win, I’m in big trouble.”
After both teams presented their backer’s audition to the potential investors, they met with Trump in the boardroom—where Trump always announces the winning team and later fires one contestant at the end of each episode.
In the boardroom, both teams thought they did well. The judges were split as to the winning team, but finally decided the men’s team did better. When Trump played the videos of each of the teams’ production, he said he didn’t like the promotional material—which Mahsa and Stephanie played a large role in creating. The material didn’t include any contact information on it for investors to reach.
“Mr. Trump,” Mahsa began, “When we went to go do the printing, Liza had given us a very exact list of what she wanted us to do. We tried to execute what she wanted as fast as possible.”
After pressing Mahsa as to why the marketing materials she was partially responsible for didn’t have contact information, he asked her about Liza, the project manager of the women’s team. But Mahsa continued to defend herself.
“I was the one in the van this morning that wrote her three-sentence presentation,” Mahsa began.
“I’m not asking about you. Everything is about you. Every damn thing is about you. You know I ask you a question about someone else and you start talking about you,” Trump said as he grew visibly irritated.
“She is the most classless individual.… She treats everybody like it is the Mahsa show,” Brandi said.
“Mahsa, you really are abrasive,” Trump said.
But things took a turn for the worst for the Iranian-American candidate when Brandi brought up the fact that Mahsa had told the men’s team how much profit they made before the results were given in the boardroom. Mahsa tried to defend herself, saying Clint from the men’s team had also told her the sales numbers from the men’s team. But according to the men’s team, which was watching from a different room, that was a complete lie.
“You altered the whole dynamic of this process,” Ivanka said to Mahsa. “Why would you do that, Mahsa?”
“It was a lapse in judgment,” Mahsa answered.
At this point, the men’s team, which had already won the task and was celebrating while watching the boardroom meeting from a television nearby, came back into boardroom to tell Trump that Mahsa had lied about their team.
“Mahsa cannot keep her mouth shut.… I was peddling the entire time [so I didn’t even know how much we made],” Clint said, accusing Mahsa of blatantly lying.
“I have never lied, Mr. Trump. I am not lying now. He said well over a thousand. Why would I lie?!” Mahsa said with a raised voice.
Clint responded, “Would you shut your mouth!”
At this point Trump‘s decision was clear. “Whether or not you’re allowed to do that, that’s one thing. But the loyalty to your team is pretty bad…. Mahsa, you’re fired.”
Before leaving the boardroom, Mahsa thanked the Trump Industries CEO. “Thank you so much for the opportunity Mr. Trump,” she said as she walked out of the boardroom for the last time.
by Grace Nasri