In Hollywood, there's usually no such thing as bad publicity. That is unless you deliberately set out to try and polarize your audience on already hot-button issues.

Donald Trump did that in recent weeks with his attacks on President Obama's birthplace and his continued chatter about running for the White House himself.

Typically such wall-to-wall news coverage like The Donald received this spring would do wonders for any shows he might be in, like say, "The Celebrity Apprentice." But there's a chance Trump's actions actually hurt "Celebrity Apprentice."

Through the end of April, "Celebrity Apprentice" remained NBC's No. 5 program, and ranked No. 42 overall, thanks to a healthy 7.5 percent audience boost from the previous year. It is averaging a 4.9 rating/8 share, according to Fast National overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co., over the 4.6/8 it finished last year with.

But numbers since late April haven't been spectacular, especially once the White House released Obama's so-called "long-form" birth certificate, which Trump had spent weeks demanding on various talk shows and media outlets.

"Celebrity Apprentice" received its highest ratings of the season May 1, but much of that could've actually come from coverage of Osama bin Laden's death, which interrupted the east coast broadcast of the show, and pre-empted it almost completely in markets in other parts of the country.

After that, however, ratings took a tumble.

In the 9 p.m. hour, for example, "Celebrity Apprentice" was averaging a 4.5 household rating. However, since May 1, that household rating has dropped 11 percent to a 4.0. The 10 p.m. hour is following suit. Before May 1, the show was averaging a 5.4 household rating, only to have it fall to a 4.7 after that -- a loss of 13 percent.

But this is what shows typically do when the weather warms up and people find things to do outside of their living rooms, right? Not really.

Last year, "Celebrity Apprentice" ratings actually were down in May (before the season finale) compared to the weeks before. The 9 p.m. hour remained virtually the same, while the 10 p.m. hour was off by 10 percent. And that was with the added publicity of rocker Bret Michaels' health issues.

So whether The Donald hurt his ratings or not, he has a chance to recover with a big episode this Sunday. No matter how the episodes fare, "Celebrity Apprentice" will still be up over last year.

Also, thanks to his announcement, he will be back in the boardroom next year with a new batch of celebrities (even if the original "Apprentice" was cancelled again).

And no matter what his politics might be at the moment, that has to have Trump smiling a little bit.