Former winner Harpreet Kaur delivered her verdict following the latest episode of the show.
Emma Rothwell, from Accrington, became the first Apprentice candidate to be fired (January 30). She had set her sights on securing the £250,000 investment from .
Speaking exclusively to Express Online on behalf of , Harpreet shared, “he was right to fire her”.
“It’s a difficult one [with Emma Rothwell being fired by Lord Sugar],” she explained. “I felt that there were other candidates that definitely won’t get far into the process, based on some of the mistakes that they were making – and the way that they were conducting themselves.
“At the end of the day, there can only be one winner of the show.
Harpreet Kaur won The Apprentice in 2022 (Image: Getty)
“Maybe if Emma didn’t deserve to go at that point – and there were people that made more mistakes – Lord Sugar is simply identifying who he cannot be in business with. We only see one hour, but there’s a lot more that’s recorded.”
Harpreet continued: “If Emma didn’t speak up for the whole duration of the task, it would have been obvious to the people in charge. He was right to fire her, simply because if he can’t see himself working in business with her, then that’s completely fair enough.
I felt like she could have fought her corner a bit better in the boardroom. She could have said, ‘Look, I’ll hold my hands up. I was nervous. It’s the first week, and there’s lots of personalities here. I’ve never done this before – I need another chance’.”
Emma, who owns personalised mug company Quirky Giraffe, was the first contestant to be eliminated from The Apprentice.
Emma Rothwell was the first entrepreneur to be fired on The Apprentice (Image: BBC)
Series 19 of the business show began in the Austrian Alps, with Lord Sugar telling the 18 budding entrepreneurs he was “looking for a Bezos, rather than a bozo”, as they were tasked with running a package tour, which they had to sell tickets for.
Emma found herself on the forest tour team, which had managed to negotiate a fantastic deal on the excursion and commission fee on the honey they were selling to their customers.
However, an abysmal performance by the sales team, which Emma was a part of, cost the team the win, making a loss of €166.
Having made no sales during the task, Emma was in the hotseat and given the boot by Lord Sugar.