It's official -- "The Celebrity Apprentice" will continue without Donald Trump.
NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt announced on Thursday that the reality series will be back for the 2016-17 season with a new host.
Greenblatt told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour that the network will delay production on the show while they search for a replacement for the former boardroom boss and current presidential candidate.
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"We're looking for a host … who is going to make noise and has a big personality," Greenblatt said.
NBC doesn’t want to "speculate" about Trump's potential successor, Greenblatt continued, since they really "aren’t that far" in the planning stages yet.
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However, he added, some of the names being currently circulated through the rumor mill "simply are not true."
Regardless of any "personal controversy" Trump may have experienced at the time, Greenblatt said the real estate mogul's longtime relationship with NBC made for a "very genial" working atmosphere.
"We weren't in any adversarial position," he said, adding that Trump was "a lovely guy" and "very much a collaborator" during his time with the network.
While Greenblatt admitted he didn't know if "somebody who’s running for president and might possibly be the next leader of the free world" would be "completely banned" from NBC entirely, he was emphatic about the possibility of Trump's eventual return to "Celebrity Apprentice."
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"I have two words, and then we have to move on," he said. "Absolutely not."
-- Erin Biglow
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