Twenty years after debuted on NBC, putting the catchphrase “You’re fired” on the nation’s lips and starring , the expansive nondisclosure agreements signed by its producers are beginning to expire. This week, one of the show’s top producers during seasons one and two is sharing previously unheard details — just as ’s 2024 bid to retake the White House kicks into high gear. Bill Pruitt’s first-person telling of the early days of , which published on Thursday, details how Trump and the team behind the NBC reality competition series “set about an American fraud that would balloon beyond its creators’ wildest imaginations.

” Pruitt’s account has details akin to what many believe would have been found in the mythical “ ” — show outtakes and cut footage that were during his presidency and even spawned . Here are five of the most compelling revelations from Pruitt’s semi-tell-all article. Trump allegedly used a racial slur to describe a contestant Pruitt makes it clear that, from his perspective, Trump is a master at deception but that in a format built on staged and phony moments, he was an inept star.

And in one moment, the producer claims that Trump’s inability to recall names, judge performance or decide a winner on the show provoked him to use a racial slur. According to Pruitt, contestant Kwame Jackson, a Black Goldman Sachs broker, had an ease and intelligence that were clear to adviser Carolyn Kepcher, so she floated him behind the scenes as .