One star of The Apprentice has slammed the “stale” show and explained the changes he would make if the BBC giant is to continue airing.
Raj Dhonota made it through to week nine on the first ever series of the programme in 2005, which was eventually won by Tim Campbell. But from Lord Sugar’s puns to the “rolled eyes” of his advisors, Raj would change “everything” if he was the one running the show.
In an exclusive chat with Daily Star, Raj explained: “I didn’t enjoy myself, it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t about business – it was about entertainment. It wasn’t my cup of tea. It was advertised as being after the 14 best entrepreneurial minds in the UK, so I felt I could fit that bill.
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“Lord Sugar’s obviously well known in business and it looked like a serious business programme, which is why I applied for it. The experience was different, but that’s what it seemed like initially.”
(Image: BBC)
Despite it all, he has “no regrets”, continuing: “I wasn’t happy with the way things were portrayed, but overall there were 10,000 applicants so to be chosen as one of the 14 and then to get through nine weeks, it was a new experience and I learned new things around media, so I don’t regret my time on there.”
Asked what he would do to change things around, Raj said: “I’d change everything. I haven’t seen the most recent ones – I didn’t even watch all of mine to be honest – but if it’s the same format over 18 years it just feels a bit stale. I’d make it more real, more business oriented.
“Candidates have limited avenues they can go down, so there’s no free will on a task – you get to choose one out of five, and all those five options are poor options. I’d give more free will to candidates to go out and actually express their business talent rather than putting them in straitjackets and sending them down a particular path.”
The lack of options wasn’t the only behind-the-scenes secret Raj divulged, confessing: “We only got to see Lord Sugar at the boardroom. It appears that the advisors are there all the time but they’re not. They’re there for much less time than it appears on camera, just for the head nods and the winks and the raised eyebrows.
(Image: BBC)
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“The majority of feedback just goes to Lord Sugar from the actual producers, who are looking at things from a TV angle not a business angle. That’s the way it operated and I doubt that’s changed much.”
Now Raj is turning his hand to a new app launch in the US, after making – and losing – millions across his business career.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
