Dragons Den star Deborah Meaden slammed a contestant when he called her “Deb” on the BBC business show.
The business magnate was stunned by the entrepreneur’s epic name blunder, and it wasn’t long before she called him out on it in the BBC studio.
Business owner Steven Murr wanted £80,000 from the dragons in return for a 5% stake in his indoor cycling business – TurboRocks – which provides rocker plates that allow fitness fanatics to pedal away at home.
However, Steven’s pitch went horribly wrong when he started using rather familiar nicknames for Deborah, first calling her “Debbie” and then shortening it to “Deb” later on in the pitch.
(Image: BBC)
Starting off, Deborah asked her co-star Steven Bartlett what he thought of the rocker plates after he hopped on the saddle to give a demonstration in the Den.
New dragon Steven had said he preferred his own way of training, and Deborah added: “And I guess it’s personal preference…”
Contestant Steven then said: “Absolutely, but there’s no reason why there can’t be the crossover there. Deb, you are…”
Deborah was visibly shocked at the guest and cut him off immediately before he could finish his sentence.
(Image: BBC)
She said: “Did you just call me Deb?”, and the contestant looked rather embarrassed as he corrected himself: “Deborah, sorry.”
Grilling him, Deborah went on: “Just so you know, you started off with a Debbie and got away with it once. Now you’ve shortened it to Deb. If you call me “D”, you’re going to be out of those lift doors faster than you can say Deborah.”
Things got even worse when he accidentally called Dragon Sara “Sarah”, who gave him a lashing herself.
Later on in the pitch Steven revealed his business has turned over £135k in net profit, despite working part-time at a bike shop.
(Image: BBC)
A lot of the dragons pulled out, with many citing Steven’s part-time job as a concern for them as they felt he might not be able to dedicate enough time and effort into his own business.
However, things looked up when Crafter’s Companion founder Sara Davies offered him a business partnership with all of the money in return for a whopping 35% of the business – seven times the amount he was willing to give away.
Touker Suleyman entered the offer race too, but he wanted even more of the business – offering him all of the money in return for a 40% stake.
In the end, Steven chose a double deal which involved him sharing the business with both Sara and Touker in return for all of the money with them getting a 20% stake each.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
