Four Apprentice candidates have spilled the beans on the show’s behind-the-scenes secrets – including everything from what really goes on in the house to why the products they make can sometimes appear to be awful.
Marnie Swindells, the winner of season 17, said that the contestants aren’t all “idiots”, and that when it comes to creating products each episode, they are limited in time and limited in terms of names and colours due to copyright. She explained: “The product you see is not our finest.”
Reece Donnelly, who appeared on the same season, said: “If this was ITV it would be a very different show. Everything has to be BBC approved. We’re not thick, we’re just trying our best.”
The former contestants also revealed at a Flex and The City panel eventthat when it comes to clothing, they were actually told what colour to wear. Reece said he was assigned navy blue which meant his boardroom outfits were always suits in that colour. Marnie explained they were given three different dress options but viewers on Twitter criticised her for wearing the same suit.
Solomon Akhtar, from the show’s tenth season, said the contestants that year were allowed to go shopping during the process for outfits. However, Reece and Marnie said it wasn’t the case for them – but they admitted to ordering clothes online to be delivered to the house in secret.
The grand Apprentice house where all the candidates stay throughout the series was the “best part” about appearing on the show, Reece said. He said it turned them into “kids” and reminisced about putting all the mattresses on the floor and cartwheeling around.
Solomon said as the cameras weren’t always there, some candidates would wait until they were alone to give criticism. However, Reece said “task talk” was banned within the house. “The house isn’t actually very luxurious,” Solomon admitted, explaining candidates were sleeping in single beds that felt “makeshift”.
When it comes to things the candidates were banned from discussing, their business plan was perhaps the most important. Reece said he was asked by Lord Sugar about his proposed business in the boardroom once, but before he could talk about it, he was stopped by production.
The boardroom scene at the end of each episode actually takes 12 hours to film, Reece said. That means that while being brought back by the project manager to face the wrath of Lord Sugar and his advisors may be a terrifying prospect, it actually “lets you get to know Lord Sugar more”, Reece said.
While the show can be cut-throat, it’s never personal between candidates, Raj Chohan from season 18 said: “You’ve come in for the job.” Raj likened appearing on the show to “doing a sky-dive” due to the pure levels of adrenaline you experience each week. She said about her time during the process: “I’m a normal girl that made mistakes on the show, but I’m still successful.”
This year’s candidates have raised eyebrows by discussing the editing of each episode on TikTok, with Jordan Dargan even referring to it as “unethical”.
Raj opened up about the episode in her series in which she got fired, and said the editing of the episode needed to make it “make sense” that she was the one let go by Lord Sugar.
She said she “actually sold some things quite well that week”, but that the editing team only had “one hour to make a clear message”.
Marnie added: “I’d be yelling at the TV ‘that’s not what happened.'”
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
