Lisa Rinna Returns to ‘All-Star Celebrity Apprentice’

Celebrity Q&A, Featured Article
on February 19, 2013
The Celebrity Apprentice
THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE -- Season: 11 -- Pictured: Lisa Rinna -- Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
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Why did Lisa Rinna decide to go back for the “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice”? She didn’t do very well the first time.
—A.J. McNary, Boston, Mass.

You are right that Rinna, 49, was the second contestant—and the first woman—in her season to get “fired,” but she says that while she was initially reluctant to put herself through the experience again, she did it to show her two daughters that it is important to not give up—and as a result she feels she ended up with a feeling of “sweet redemption.”

“I really think we create what happens to us, and two years ago I was a different person,” says the Medford, Ore.-born actress and TV personality. “I think I was vulnerable in not knowing the game. In knowing the game, I had a lot more confidence. I was going to go in and succeed this time, and I think that is what failure teaches you. When you have failed at something, you are going to fight much harder to succeed if you are given a second chance.”

The mother of two daughters with husband Harry Hamlin says it was actually her 11-year-old daughter Amelia that convinced her when she said, “Mom, I think you need to go back. You need to fix it, and I think you should play for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”

This time around, Rinna says she had such a positive experience that she would do it again. But she also feels that it was a great learning experience for her and the businesses that she is involved in, including the Belle Grey fashion line that is currently featuring its spring line on QVC.

“My businesses in the few months that I have been back have succeeded so much more because I am so much smarter and more knowledgeable in dealing with people in a business situation,” she says. “I learned a tremendous amount.”