Wippa Calls Out Celebrity Apprentice Over Edited Soundbite: “I Never Said That”

Turns out The Veronicas aren’t the only ones taking aim at Celebrity Apprentice over their highly edited portrayal.

Speaking to his Fitzy & Wippa co-host, Ryan “Fitzy” Fitzgerald, Wippa — aka Michael Wipfli — revealed just how highly edited the show is.

Last night’s episode saw Wippa unable to take part in a task with teammates Ross Noble and Josh Gibson due to a stomach flu. In the episode, we hear Wippa say that he’s “pretty sure” he had gastro. In reality, Wippa told Fitzy he was actually saying that he didn’t have gastro, but says producers had taken different soundbites to create a more dramatic plot point.

Wippa explained that he was aware that reality stars often complained about copping a rough edit, and that the general consensus with viewers was “but you said it”, but that in this case, he insists he absolutely did not say it.

“Last night there was an edit that was done on me where it made me sound like I said I had gastro,” he said, explaining, “I never ever said I had gastro, in fact I said “they said it could be gastro, I don’t have gastro”.

Playing the audio clip from the moment, Wippa went on to say that the producers took “the part where I said ‘I don’t have gastro'” and added the word “gastro” to another sentence.

“There’s three grabs there,” he continued. “‘I’m pretty sure’, ‘I have’, ‘Gastro’. Three different bits, like chop, chop, chop.”

Listening to the audio after it’s been pointed out, you can definitely hear the differences in sound where the edits have been made, but without having someone to point it out, these things go mostly unnoticed by the everyday viewer.

Still, this is an ongoing thing in reality television, so much so that it has its own name: the Frankenbite.

According to Urban Dictionary, a frankenbite is “the process of editing two or more sound bites together to create a different result, to fix grammar, or to change to meaning of a sentence”.

And of course, Wippa’s not the only one who’s called out the reality series over its editing.

Last week, The Veronicas posted a scathing open letter to the producers of the show, calling the series “gut wrenching, soul destroying” to watch.

The twins — Jessica and Lisa Origliasso — wrote that they signed up “under the guise of charity and heart” to raise money and awareness for The Brain Foundation.

A cause close to their hearts, the twins’ mother Colleen is now in palliative care due to a rare neurological condition called progressive supranuclear palsy.

The duo wrote that their “genuine intentions and passion [had been] reduced to an edit”, and called it “disgusting” to see themselves depicted as “strong-arming other team members and outwardly using our mother’s condition for sympathy and manipulative tactics”.

Celebrity Apprentice airs Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays at 7.30pm on 9 and 9Now.