Rachel Uchitel says she turned down Donald Trump’s offer to star on “Celebrity Apprentice” following her involvement in Tiger Woods’ earth-shattering cheating scandal.
“Donald Trump called my phone at, like, 7 … one morning. I was in Las Vegas. I’ll never forget. I woke up and it was Donald Trump on the other end of the line asking me to do ‘[Celebrity] Apprentice,’” she told ’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast during a recent visit to our New York City studio.
“We talked about it and I basically said yes because why wouldn’t I?” she added.
However, she decided to pursue another unscripted project — VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” Season 4 — as it seemed like a better opportunity to rehabilitate her image after being cast as the villain in stories about Woods’ extramarital affairs that made headlines in late 2009.
“They were filming at the same time. I decided to do ‘Celebrity Rehab’ for the reason that I felt like, ‘Listen, everybody in the world hates me right now. They’re talking about me in a way that I don’t even recognize,’” she explained. “It upset me so much that people had such a bad vision of me but didn’t know me.”
Uchitel, 49, was drawn to the around-the-clock production format of “Celebrity Rehab,” which she felt would provide a more substantial platform to show the world that she was more than the tabloid mistress to blame for the demise of Woods’ marriage to now-ex-wife Elin Nordegren.
“That’s why I chose to do ‘Celebrity Rehab’ because I had three weeks of being on the show, they weren’t going to edit me in a certain way,” she told us. “They could have, but it ended up being the right choice.”
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Uchitel didn’t trust that she would be portrayed through a forgiving lens on Trump’s cutthroat business competition, whereas “Celebrity Rehab” facilitated space for raw conversations that gave viewers a glimpse inside her heart and headspace.
“You’re being filmed 24 hours a day — besides when you’re sleeping — and they couldn’t make me into something that I wasn’t if I didn’t give them that,” she shared. “So I just was myself.”
Uchitel’s first taste of fame came when she was featured on the cover of the New York Post in 2001 following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center — where her late fiancé, Andy O’Grady, worked.
At 26, a horrified Uchitel was photographed outside of Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital clasping a photo of her soon-to-be spouse, whom she had hoped to be reunited with but never was.
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“It changed my life in a way that I did not have to go through that tragedy by myself. Everybody in the world was following my story. They wanted to know about Andy,” she said.
“That picture was on the cover of almost every newspaper in the world at the time within two days. But the way they framed it — ‘New York’s tragic face’ — forget me … it was a young, fresh-faced 26-year-old girl in a moment of, like, ‘Please help me find this person.’”
Though Uchitel said the experience was “terrible,” the “Miss Understood” podcast host feels “so honored” to have made the cover of the Post because her story’s enduring interest from the public has helped her keep O’Grady’s legacy alive.
“To me, it’s just so important that people don’t forget him,” the New Yorker-turned-Florida resident noted. “Whether or not they like me, my story or anything about me, when I talk about it, it’s to remember him and who he was and what he went through.”
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