The finale of Celebrity Apprentice was last night and Bret Michaels emerged the winner in the live event versus Holly Robinson Peete. Bret recently suffered a health crisis with a massive brain hemorrhage on April 21, about 10 days after he’d had an emergency appendectomy. He was out of the hospital and headed for a full recovery earlier this month, but suffered a setback with a minor stroke just last week. Michaels hung in there and was present for the finale of the show in NY. In case you think he got the sympathy vote for weathering such incredible health problems, many people said that he outperformed Peete in the final challenge and was consistently the best contestant overall. Peete of course held her own though, and won more money than anyone on the history of Celebrity Apprentice or regular Apprentice.

While most of the television-watching audience was trying to parse out whatever was happening during the finale of “Lost” on Sunday night (when was the last time you had a memory in the third person?), the real drama was going down a few clicks away on the season finale of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” In a dramatic two hours of rapid-fire reality TV, Bret Michaels and Holly Robinson Peete squared off in an epic duel that ended not only with Michaels’ amazing recovery but also with his Snapple-fueled victory.

Most people would assume that Michaels’ victory was simply a feel-good move by Donald Trump in order to provide a fitting end to what has been a great story that has accidentally incorporated the Poison frontman’s real-life health struggles. While Michaels seemed to be perfectly healthy on the live portions of Sunday night’s (May 23) episode, he was still in the hospital and in relatively ill health as late as Thursday of last week. But Michaels’ win was also because he simply did better in the challenge, out-dueling his opponent in just about every aspect the Snapple executives cared about (Michaels’ commercial, featuring former baseball great Darryl Strawberry wearing a beret and talking about pears, was especially excellent). Holly didn’t even seem that upset in the very professional boardroom scene, as though she knew that Michaels’ had outdone her (though you had to feel a little sad that her daughter was rooting for Bret and not for her).

Of course, the competition was just one aspect of last night’s show. The finale brought back all of the already-fired contestants (well, except for Sharon Osbourne and Bill Goldberg, whose absences were not explained at all), which reminded everybody why this season was so incredibly entertaining in the first place. Cyndi Lauper rolled around on a desk for reasons that nobody could quite figure out, and even though he didn’t say much of anything, Rod Blagojevich managed to look like he didn’t know where he was or what was going on (which is exactly what made him charming in the first place). And look! There’s Sinbad!

In the end, this season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” stood tall as one of the most surprising series of the television season. Though the two hour length was often punishing (even the finale felt just a touch soggy), it brought together some incredible personalities and put them in usually silly situations. And it also solidified Michaels’ as one of the finest stars of the celebrity genre (which, in 2010 terms, is about the equivalent of being the best hair metal frontman).

[From MTV]

With the Celebrity Apprentice title Michaels earned $250,000 for his charity, the American Diabetes association. On top of everything else, the 47 year-old singer suffers from Type 1 diabetes. Snapple, the sponsor of the final challenge, matched Michaels’ donation with a $250,000 gift to Peete’s cause, the HollyRod Foundation for autism awareness. Peete has a three year old son with autism.

I’m just glad the guy is ok and hope he takes it easy from now on. He’s been through so much and it can’t help to keep pushing himself like this. Hopefully he’ll rest and recuperate after his hard fought battle both in the hospital and the board room.

Here’s Bret discussing his medical condition. When asked about whether he’s risking his life to be on the show, Bret jokes that “lately it seems like me just standing up is risking my life.”

And here he is winning. Thanks to AOL Television for these clips.