Bret Michaels Wins "Celebrity Apprentice"

After 11 weeks of competition, an emergency appendectomy, a brain hemorrhage and a "warning stroke," the resilient Bret Michaels was crowned the winner of "The Celebrity Apprentice" on Sunday night's season finale.

Michaels, who defeated actress Holly Robinson Peete on the two-hour season finale episode, was determined to overcome his physical challenges and make it to the live finale.

"I came here to win," he said. Looking visibly frail, the Poison front man walked with a limp onto the live set, but immediately went back to his charismatic old self as he cracked jokes and greeted each fired contestant.

Both Michaels and Peete were drawn to the game for personal reasons.

Michaels is a life-time Type 1 diabetic and played for the American Diabetes Association. Peete was competing to raise money for autism research through her non-profit organization, HollyRod. Her 12-year-old son, RJ, suffers from autism.

Photos: "The Celebrity Apprentice"
Photos: Bret Michaels

The two competed in the final task that consisted of creating a new flavor for Snapple, formulating a 30-second commercial, and a three-page advertorial.

Michaels, with the help of fired contestants Daryl Strawberry and Summer Sanders, launched the "Trop-A-Rocka" flavor of Diet Snapple. Peete created Compassionberry tea with recently expelled contestants Maria Kanellis and Curtis Stone.

The Snapple executives enjoyed both final products. They thought Michaels' was very creative and said it was smart of him to integrate himself in the ad campaign.

Their comments for Peete were just as positive. They enjoyed her presentation and appreciated her professionalism. This came as no surprise, as Peete has been a strong player with a no-nonsense business sense from the beginning. She made "Apprentice" history by raising more money than any other contestant in previous seasons.

But, the decision ultimately came down to Donald Trump. In the end, he "hired" Michaels rather than Peete. Trump called Michaels "popular, imaginative and brave."

"Everyone loved you," he said.

Michaels, who suffered a potentially fatal brain hemorrhage on April 22, was re-hospitalized last week after experiencing a stroke.

He's made it clear the setbacks can't stop him from pursuing what he wants. "I'm a problem solver - a rock-n-roll MacGyver."

[vlyman9]

Totally disagree. I watched every episode, and Bret deserved to win not because of sympathy but because he was a much better player. I was disappointed that in the finale only Invanka pointed that out. Holly may have been a strong player overall but in my opinion didn't even deserve to make the finale. She lost 2 of 3 tasks as Project Manager - not because her teammates didn't help out or had time management issues - but on concept. Holly should have been fired after losing the first one. She even lost the creative element (workout routine) of the task she won. The execs picked the other team. She was also a poor manager of the difficult but talented people on her team (Cyndi Lauper) which in my opinion is a flaw. She even advised Summer not to use Cyndi on the vocal track for the radio commercial - the only thing the execs liked about Team Tenacity's spots! Holly overall made many poor concept decisions, although she was good at execution.

Bret on the other hand won both of his tasks as project manager and was able to work with everyone he was paired with. He was incredibly creative and hard working and was able to roll with whatever was thrown his way. This is why he won and why he deserved to win.

I'm really glad Donald Trump made the right decision in the end.

Go Bret! I'm going to buy a case of your Snapple Tea for my party tonight!

[Blatensphere]

Yay Bret.

[pragmatist1]

A sympathy decision if ever there was one. His doctor didn't think he should even risk making the trip and appearing on the show; he clearly had difficulty even moving about and only showed up for the sympathy vote. Throughout the season, Michaels was an appalling project manager and fund raiser. In the past, the cumulative aspect of being a solid project manager and fundraiser were usually the deciding factors. Michaels was distracted, had no sense of time management or people management, was unmanageable and undisciplined, and did everything nilly willy without any cogent plan. Had Micheals not had all of those medical issues, he would have never won. Peete should have been selected just based on the fact that she was consistent throughout the season and raised the most amount of money for her charity and set a record for the series. She was clearly superior all around in effecting her "duties". Donald should fire himself from making any more decisions on both regular Apprentice of the Celebrity version. The Donald is slipping in his old age.

[diogy]

Right. No one saw that decision coming! UGH

[rtw88]

If the final decision was based upon the Snapple challenge alone, then Bret Michaels was the proper choice, given that the Snapple execs picked his ad campaign over Robinson-Peet's, overall. If it had been based on overall performance throughout the season, then she should have won. However, each week people were fired based upon their performance on that particular challenge alone, many times not taking into account their past performance.

Realistically, Holly Robinson-Peet played the sympathy card all throughout the season, by constantly referencing her own child's battle with autism.