Lexus challenge sinks Valley 'Apprentice'

Jenn Hoffman says she’s the happiest “Apprentice” who’s ever been fired.

“I feel wonderful today,” says Hoffman, a publicist at Orca Communications of Phoenix. “I feel rejuvenated and happy, and I’m glad the way my experience unfolded.”

On NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice” on Sunday night, Hoffman was part of a double firing, courtesy of host Donald Trump. Hoffman certainly seemed to take the firing well compared with past participants, even hugging her teammates goodbye.

“I wanted to show my team that I wasn’t afraid of them,” Hoffman says of her role as project manager for her team, Kinetic. “I knew there was an alliance against me containing most of my team. They pretty much picked off the other people that weren’t in the alliance. ... I wanted to show my team that I didn’t need their alliance.”

During their task, teams Arrow and Kinetic were challenged to create an experience for a group of preferred guests to introduce Lexus’ new sedan.

“The task was really tough,” she says. “It was the biggest budget that we’ve ever worked with during a regular ‘Apprentice’ task during our season. Usually our budget is between $1,000 to $2,000. This was a $50,000 budget, so it was really intense. I didn’t want to screw it up.”

Trump blamed Kinetic’s loss on Hoffman, who fought for the addition of go-karts as part of the team’s experience, because go-karts strayed from the high-end Lexus theme.

But Hoffman says she never wanted to do the go-karts.

“That was kind of a weird edit,” she says. “I was completely not into it. I thought it was the most horrific idea ever. The second we did them, I knew we were going to lose.”

Hoffman says she knew she was going to be fired when her team was called to the boardroom.

“I saw it coming,” she says. “(Trump) gets in this mode and this zone where he looks at you and gives you that look like he’s going to tear you apart. I was ready for it, and I knew it was going to happen.”

Although she was the eighth contestant fired during the show’s sixth season — which was taped last summer — Hoffman took the news gracefully.

“In that limo ride home, I was ecstatic,” she says. “But I will say that before we went into the boardroom, I did consider honestly like freaking out and going crazy on all of them. At that point, I absolutely hated (teammates) Munya and Heidi. I seriously wanted them dead.”

After she left her team, Hoffman says she joined the other fired contestants in a California hotel where they were put in lockdown.

“You get to know all of these people outside of the business environment and it is the most fun part of the whole experience,” she says.

Hoffman says that meeting Trump and Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner and “all these great wonderful celebrities and personalities and getting to know them” was a highlight of her experience.

“I also really, really loved the craziness of it,” says Hoffman, who says she keeps in touch with the cast. “I loved the drama of it. Going back to a normal job is really tough after you’re like 100 percent drama.”

So what’s next for the Valley’s fired “Apprentice”?

“Basically what’s next for me is shedding the business suit and trying to remain out of the corporate spotlight,” says Hoffman, who’s doing celebrity gossip reports on KZON (101.5 FM). “I’m going to try and go anti-‘Apprentice’ with the corporate thing, but if there’s ever an ‘Apprentice All-Stars’ you can watch for me because you know I’ll fight like hell to get on that.”