Ex-'Apprentice' Vincent Pastore On Barack, Piers & His Next Reality TV Venture
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FIRST PUBLISHED: February 4, 2008 10:16 PM EST
LAST UPDATED: February 5, 2008 2:07 PM EST
NEW YORK, NY --
Add one more celeb to the Barack Obama supporters club.
Vincent Pastore, the recently departed contestant from NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” gave AccessHollywood.com the scoop that he’s on board Team Barack.
“It’s Obama,” he told Access.
“I’m starting to believe in what he’s talking about,” Pastore said. “I’m starting to read and pay attention more and more. I think he’s exactly what the country needs.”
So what made the former “Sopranos” star pick Oprah’s favorite political contender, when his former co-star Vincent Curatola (Johnny Sack) appeared in a Hillary Clinton campaign song-choosing ad?
Turns out it has to do with his own Kennedy connection.
“I’ve been like kind of blind to the whole political race up until maybe a few weeks ago and this whole Kennedy thing – [them] backing him up impressed me,” Pastore said. “I knew Bobby personally. When I was younger, I used to work in Washington, D.C. when he was Senator. I worked for the Secretary of the Navy when I was in the service and I would go over to Congress and the Senate and I used to meet Bobby all the time. And I loved him. And I always like the Kennedys. And to say that the Kennedys are backing up Barack? It makes me think a little.”
Pastore has had time to think. He left “Celebrity Apprentice” by choice in a dramatic, two-hour episode last week after a heated altercation with Piers Morgan.
The actor sensationally resigned after an episode that saw him infiltrate the ladies camp and later get sold out by the ex-tabloid editor.
“I remember when I was walking into the boardroom the producers were saying, ‘Don’t give up, don’t back down!’ … And for some reason when I walked into that boardroom and I felt all the animosity from both teams, that’s when I said, 'I’m throwing in the towel,'” Pastore said of his resignation.
But there are no hard feelings. He’s still on good terms with some of his former teammates.
“I am not mad at Lennox [Lewis] and I’m not made at Piers,” he said. “We were playing for charity — not a life or death situation.”
And he won’t be off screens for much longer. Pastore has his own reality show coming up on TLC with two former “Sopranos” co-stars.
“I have a reality show coming up in April… Three guys take over a restaurant that went down the tubes and we bring it back to life,” he explained. “It’s me and two other ‘Sopranos’ — Joe Gannascoli who played Vito and Tony Darrow who was on the show for a few years.”
The trio of men will take a troubled restaurant in the Bronx and attempt to revive it.
“It’s the restaurant where Joe Pesci got discovered in,” Pastore said of the locale. “We can really take off with this thing.”
Copyright 2009 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
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