From Lloyd Grove's New York Daily News gossip column Lowdown

Now in its fourth season, Donald Trump's "Apprentice" franchise has been taking a drubbing. The ratings are down; Trump has been blaming his spinoff protégée, Martha Stewart, for the slump; and now a just-fired contestant is claiming that the editing on Trump's show is not to be believed.

Florida entrepreneur Mark Garrison - aka "Markus," whom Trump terminated during last Thursday's installment - complains that the producers used video clips out of sequence to make him look like a gibbering idiot.

"My reputation has been decimated," Garrison told me yesterday, adding that he decided to speak out after reading Timothy O'Brien's recently published exposé "Trump Nation."

In an angry E-mail to "Apprentice" staff psychologist Liza Siegel, Garrison asserted that "the intentionally libelous method of editing has resulted in the public's belief that I am an idiot...not to mention mentally ill....I do not intend to be [Mark Burnett Productions'] cannon fodder without a spirited fight."

Garrison, who has a collection of allegedly dodgy "Apprentice" video clips, claims at least two instances of tricked-up editing: In one, during a phone call from Trump, he says producers cobbled together his answers to different questions to make him sound windy and disjointed; in another, a shot of Garrison playing with a yo-yo - cut into a segment depicting a Learning Annex presentation, even though it occurred afterward - makes him look bored and disengaged.

But Trump told me: "I dealt with him a lot during the course of the show, and you see a lot of difficulty with Markus from the standpoint of talking too much. He seems like a nice guy, but, boy, he just wouldn't stop." Trump added: "I don't do the editing....My opinion is that Markus was treated accurately."

Producer Burnett also declined to address Garrison's specific allegations.

"Essentially Markus was fired for talking too much, and clearly he hasn't shut up yet," Burnett said in a statement. "I have never commented on the editing of my shows, but having seen all the footage we have of Markus, it could have been a lot worse."

Just another bitter fired contestant...funny how the other people who were fired for ridicioulus reasons didnt complain about how the show is planned?

Sour grapes. :rolleyes:

Sour grapes. :rolleyes:
Seriously, the phone call thing was in episode 1, notice how he didnt complain about until after the episode he was fired in aired?

he really is barking up the wrong tree. I mean he did talk way to much in all the episodes. I remember when he was at dinner with mr. trump and he couldn't keep his mouth closed....