I had a bad experience with the press after. Then you go into a boardroom together, try to kill each other in front of Lord Sugar, and just get in a car together afterwards, making small talk as you go back to the house. You have to live with them, do tasks with them, share bedrooms. Sometimes the other contestants drive you mad. But when I was on, the contestants were credible people with real experience who didn’t think the world owed them a living.īeing a project leader is horrible. Later, it turned into a hair-gel-and-lipgloss show. As the years have gone on, it’s become a different show. I have nothing but fond memories of the show. ‘It turned into a hair-gel-and-lipgloss show’ … Ruth Badger.
I’m direct, I can talk to people and I can smell a pound. I’m a bugger to deal with but I love doing deals! When I applied to be on the show, all I ever said was that I was really good at selling. I was arranging my daughter’s birthday party recently, and some suppliers wouldn’t work with me because I used my Badger email address and they recognised the name. ‘People try to kill you then make small talk’īecause I got a reputation for being pushy on The Apprentice, it can be hard to find suppliers to work with to this day. Lord Sugar is still my business partner: he owns 50% of my business. I don’t talk to the other contestants much these days, although there’s a WhatsApp group for Apprentice winners that I’m a member of. The show airs six months later, and you only find out if you won a week before. Then Lord Sugar said: “Your face is a picture! Didn’t they tell you we record two endings?” They recorded me winning next. So when they said Helen Milligan, the other finalist, had won, I was distraught. What I didn’t realise was that The Apprentice records two endings, one in which each finalist wins. I think someone actually trademarked it in Australia. That and “Emergency Biscuit!” I still think the Emergency Biscuit was a wonderful idea. I still think that’s a good idea! People shout “MyPy” at me in the street to this day. We came up with the MyPy brand in 20 minutes. Photograph: Ian West/PAīut we did pretty well with the fast food challenge. Now turning over £5m a year … Tom Pellereau. We were trying to sell £100 hair pieces that weren’t very nice – when Claire’s Accessories was next door, selling something similar for £2.
Ironically, given that I now run a business that turned over £5m last year, my worst task was the beauty challenge in the Bullring, Birmingham. You’re woken up at 5am every day, you film until 10pm – and you’re only allowed one phone call a week, which the producers listen in on, to check you’re not leaking information to people back home. I’m not your classic Apprentice candidate. I’d see the errors we were making as a team, but I wasn’t able to get people to listen to me. Nine years on, I’m fulfilling my dream, with my own beauty company and 15 products invented. They’ll portray you as a geek.” But I was in a real career low and this seemed like a last roll of the dice. When I told my cousin, he said: “This is career suicide. I’d been trying to make it as an inventor for 10 years. Instead of winning a job, you’d get investment. I applied because they’d changed the format of the show. ‘I still think my Emergency Biscuit was a wonderful idea’