DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

"You're a role-model", said Donald Trump to a victorious Joan Rivers, the woman who had, for the previous 6 episodes, delivered a most vitriolic public attack on her fellow contestant. Rivers called Annie Duke a 'Nazi'. She called her 'scum' and said that she would 'spit on the ground and drown her mother in it'. She called her 'a despicable human being', a 'piece of shit' and 'beyond white trash'. She called her two-faced and compared her to Hitler, a comment that she has since stood behind.

Not content with verbally abusing Annie's character, she called into question the character of the people with whom she associated. She degraded the generosity shown by Annie's poker friends, calling them Mafiosi and claiming that their money had blood on it. Never, in the history of Reality Television, has a person been subjected to such vile and unwarranted attacks as Annie Duke was made to endure. But this was all model behaviour according to 'The Donald'. These incidents were laudable and demonstrated to him that she was a worthy winner of his show. Of course, the fact that his blood relative works for Joan's charity had nothing to do with the outcome.

Reality Television is a cynical business. The moments that appear most 'real' are almost always the moments that are scripted or contrived. Public opinion inexplicably swayed in Joan's favour in recent weeks. America rallied behind her as a bastion for good versus the evil, conniving 'pokah playa'! Nothing was spared in an effort to conjure up the notion that Joan had the moral high-ground. Even poor ol' God got thrown into the mix as, with sledgehammer subtlety, the holy Joes rushed to her assistance in a crisis - a crisis which might have been of her own making but was far more likely the brainchild of the show's producers. In fact, David Tutera, the party planner who was at the centre of the onscreen clash, has since come out in the media saying that The Apprentice producers 'manipulated' the situation by telling him ahead of time that he was not to give Rivers any ideas of his own.

In short, Annie was set-up. She was busy winning the game, unaware that it was a game within a game. You may need to be calculated, gutsy and deceptive to succeed in poker but you need to be cunning, cut-throat and downright dishonest if you're going to make it in the Entertainment Industry. That was Joan's edge all along.

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