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HEAR FOR YOURSELF
The bombshell tape that reveals what Nick Hewer REALLY thinks about The Apprentice
Exclusive audio recording shows he said TV bosses pressured Lord Sugar into keeping blonde contestant on show
THE Sun can today reveal the bombshell audio of former Apprentice star Nick Hewer revealing the behind-the-scenes secrets of the BBC show.
Earlier this week our Bizarre TV column published the Countdown host's claims about how Apprentice producers previously pressured Alan Sugar not to fire a blonde contestant, how bosses choose looks over brains when picking candidates and that the more outrageous lines included in your CV the more likely you are to get in the boardroom.
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Lord Sugar claimed Hewer had been "stitched up" with a ";pack of lies" about his revealing chat at Oxford University.
Now readers can judge for themselves by listening to our exclusive recording of what he really said.
The star, who turns 73 in February, revealed: “People say 'Oh, it must be such fun to work on the Apprentice!’
“Everybody says that: 'What fun that must be'.
“Well I've got to tell you, for the elderly, it's one of the biggest nightmares I've ever had to endure.
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"Can you imagine, even at your young age, having to spend two or three days chasing around after maybe six or eight hooligans?
“It was ghastly! And eventually, after ten years, I said 'That's enough', so I left."
Lord Sugar's former aide also made the claim that producers once tried to stop Lord Sugar from firing a blonde female contestant purely because of their appearance.
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He recalled: “I say to him, ‘Oh, by the way Alan, the blonde: he or she is as thick as a fridge door, and I urge you with every fibre of your being, get rid of them, because they’re going to let you down”.
“And the producers will say, ‘Do you think you could find it in your heart to not get rid of the blonde just yet?’
“He will say ‘The blonde will go when the blonde deserves to go’.”
Nick, who was on The Apprentice for ten years before leaving in 2014, also believes the producers were even picking candidates for their looks during the original selection process.
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He said: “There was a time when all the young ladies who came on wore black pencil skirts and very high heels, with their hair done up in a chignon. You’ve got to be able to differentiate the candidates.
“If you’ve got 16 in an hour, you think, ‘What are their names?’
“I suspect that the producers go for different looks or people that can be differentiated visually — that would make sense, wouldn’t it? But again, you need the characters don’t you?”
And Nick confessed that bosses deliberately choose brainless candidates as a ploy to bump up the ratings.
He explained: “You might say, ‘Are these the brightest people with the best prospects?’, and I would say ‘No, not necessarily’.
“If you really got the brightest kids the danger is that no one would understand what they’re doing.
“What would happen — because this is how it happens — is it would be on BBC 14 at 3am, with six viewers, and the commissioning editor would be taken out of his office, led by the elbow to a brick wall, where he would be machine gunned.
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“It’s all about the viewers. If you don’t deliver the numbers, you’re out. Which is why it’s been running now for twelve years.
“Why is it important, also, that they look like dum-dums? Because everybody’s got to know that they could do a better job.
“The guy on a squashy sofa, clutching a can of Stella in Strathclyde or wherever he is, who hasn’t got a job, and frankly is going to struggle, can say with absolute certainty that he could do better.”
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He said: “The big key, to anyone thinking of applying, is make sure on your CV, you say something so outrageous that the producer goes straight to you and says, ‘That’ll do’.
“‘I am the best salesperson in the northern hemisphere’ - bit boring, but that’ll do."
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