Mon Apr 11, 3:58 PM ET Shelton, who has been labeled a "hothead" by the Donald for his Apprentice antics, was arrested Saturday night and charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly melting down at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa.
A 22-year-old tobacco-chewing Las Vegas real-estate investor on the "street-smarts" side, Shelton had joined several other contestants from the NBC reality show at the gambling resort to celebrate the birthday of another fellow Apprentice candidate, John Gafford. Authorities say Shelton became irate after the hotel's nightclub wouldn't let him in for free and tried to charge him a $20 cover.
Per the police report, Shelton began yelling and cursing in the lobby, and "there were several patrons in the area who were visibly shaken by his actions."
A tribal police officer on the scene twice requested the college dropout turned millionaire rein in his temper. But the tantrum allegedly continued, and Shelton was taken into custody and ended up cooling his heels overnight in a Tampa jail before being released early Sunday morning on a $250 bond.
Gafford, who wasn't present when Shelton was arrested, told the Tampa Tribune that the hotel staff overreacted.
"It's so ludicrous," Gafford said. "The hotel handled the situation very poorly from top to bottom."
A rep for the NBC series declined to comment on the arrest, saying it was a "personal matter."
But Shelton's anger-management issues have become a focus of The Apprentice in recent weeks. In last week's episode, Shelton was MIA from his Net Worth team after losing the company credit card at a Best Buy. The camera crew caught him confronting an employee and threatening to bust the person's kneecaps if the card didn't turn up.
A week earlier, he engaged in a shouting match with teammate Alex Thomason, who later said he felt "physically threatened" by Shelton during the courtroom showdown. Trump called Shelton a "loose cannon" and "hothead" who needed to work on his temper.
In an online NBC poll asking whether Shelton should remain on the show or be fired for "unprofessional" conduct because of his unruly behavior, 72 percent overwhelmingly favored his ouster.
Shelton is one of the final six contestants, but he has been on thin ice, appearing in the boardroom several weeks in a row and narrowly avoiding being fired. Filming has been completed on the series, with the winner to be announced during May sweeps.
Of course thats just my opinion....I could be wrong. (Dennis Miller)
"You might be the toughest little whacker. . .but in my world, you're about as worrisome as a cloudy day." (Dutch Dooley)
04-12-2005 12:41 AM
But he somehow always seem to have 9 lives. 
