The Apprentice: Fired candidate Amy Anzel believes being Lord Sugar's business partner ‘is not an amazing deal’

Virgin Radio

10 Feb 2022, 22:05

There’s no love lost between latest fired Apprentice candidate Amy Anzel and Lord Sugar it seems. 

Beauty company owner Amy, who is CEO of Hollywood Browzer, got the boardroom boot after failing to impress Lord Sugar, Karren Brady and Tim Campbell in a tourist task based in north Wales. 

The teams had to sell high-octane tours and activities of local tourist attractions, but dwindling interest and lacking tips put Amy and her team at risk. 

Amy made it clear very early on that this task wasn’t for her when she took herself out of the race to be Project Manager. That, coupled with less-than-impressive sales, meant the New York-born candidate was sent packing. 

It’s alright though, Amy reckons she might have dodged a bullet.  

On what she wanted to do next, Amy told virginradio.co.uk: “I went in there to scale up and expand [Hollywood Browzer] and since I got back, I've worked my a** off to do just that without Lord Sugar obviously, so we're now in 6 major UK retailers…we’re listed in 159 countries so that’s what I’ve been focusing on. 

“That's why I went in there, that's what I was hoping to do next, I feel like I've accomplished that. Now I get to keep 100 percent of my company, I don't have to give away 50 percent for £250 [thousand] which, by the way, isn't an amazing deal, so maybe it was for the best, to keep the 50 percent.”

The heated boardroom moments caught Amy off guard it seems, who said while she was ‘gutted’ by the final result, it was Lord Sugar’s comment that she was ‘hiding from the spotlight’ that has been bugging the businesswoman since cameras stopped rolling. 

She added: “I'd like him to tell me how I avoided the spotlight. If you're sub team leader four out of six tasks, how is that hiding? It's like being Vice President, it's a big role, I took it on happily.”

“I just thought I don't know what he's talking about, it didn't make sense to me. After I was fired I was just going over and over thinking I don't understand that reasoning.”

For Amy, she’s not massively convinced she wasn’t given the chop for any other reason than because Lord Sugar just didn’t want her as his business partner, and reckons this was his way of getting rid. 

She added: “I didn't think there was like a cutoff [for being PM], especially as I was continually contributing and making significant contributions, so I just still think it's a kind of BS reason and a slightly made-up reason to get me out, because maybe he just didn't see me as a business partner, and that's OK, but I would've rather him have said ‘I just don't see you as a business partner, bye bye.’”

So what’s next for Amy? She’s sticking with her business and hopes to sell it for ‘billions’ which she’s also keen to get 100 percent of now she’s on her own. 

Despite taking part in The Apprentice and, for those who remember, the very first series of US reality show The Bachelor, are there any more reality shows in Amy’s future?

She told virginradio.co.uk: “I do so much TV shopping, just being on telly, it feels very natural to me, I'm still a business woman first and foremost. My business comes first but if I was asked to do other programmes, I would consider it. It just depends on the nature of the programme, but ultimately, I'm focusing on the business.”

The Apprentice continues on Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One, followed by You’re Fired on BBC Two. Watch live and on-demand on BBC iPlayer.