'Celebrity Apprentice's' Rod Blagojevich: "I wasn't interested in a 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians'"

Rod Blagojevich didn't watch reality shows before nor during his stormy term as Illinois governor, but he still knew the kind he didn't want to do.

"I wasn't interested in a 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians,'" he tells Zap2it of his multiple television offers after being impeached in 2009 amid charges of corruption and misconduct, which he characterizes as "lies."

The ex-politician known as "Blago" will be among the 14 contenders when Donald Trump and NBC launch season three of "The Celebrity Apprentice" Sunday, March 14.

"I have great admiration for him," Blagojevich says of Trump. "This is a guy who stands very strong for the things he wants to do and believes in. He's known great success, and he knows what it's like to fall from the highest mountain and crash to the ground, then to pick himself up and come back.

He's said something like, 'Adversity is the true test, and it can be a harbinger for future success' -- but more important than the quote is that he's lived it."

Blagojevich couldn't participate last summer in NBC's "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" because of travel restrictions on him, but his wife Patti did. He claims he felt comfortable taping in the "Celebrity Apprentice" boardroom, except "when I was sitting next to the wrestler Goldberg. That guy's huge! I just felt so short next to him."

Pleased to be receiving "modest compensation" for himself and his family, plus potential winnings for a charity (in his case, the Florida-based Children's Cancer Center), Blagojevich also appreciates being able to use what he can of his former occupation in "The Celebrity Apprentice."

"In some respects, doing a show like this takes you back to your beginnings," he confirms. "I was the chief executive of the fifth biggest state in America for six years. You have all these people who work for you, and you delegate and discuss and do all the things leaders do. Making decisions, and achieving results, is so much a part of what the job is."

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More Blago dish:

'Celebrity Apprentice' cheat sheet: Who's who?
Rod Blagojevich joins 'Celebrity Apprentice'
Rod Blagojevich overshadows 'I'm a Celebrity'
Rod Blagojevich already apologizing for saying 'I'm blacker than Obama'
Blago vs Letterman: Kind-of a mismatch
The impeachment trial of Rod Blagojevich


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