The Apprentice: First eliminated candidate 'devastated' by Lord Sugar's decision
The Apprentice: First eliminated candidate 'devastated' by Lord Sugar's decision
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‘I didn’t get time to show what I can do,’ the unlucky entrepreneur said. Emma Rothwell, the first contestant to be fired on this year’s series of The Apprentice, has admitted she’s “devastated” to be leaving the competition so soon. The BBC business show returned for its 19th season on Thursday (30 January), with a roster of 18 entrepreneurs competing for the £250,000 cash prize and mentorship from business magnate and media personality Alan Sugar.
![[Emma Rothwell became the first contestant eliminated from ‘The Apprentice’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/31/10/16/Screenshot-2025-01-31-at-10-24-24.png)
Rothwell, 30, who owns an online gift store called Quirky Giraffe, was let go by Sugar after finding herself on the losing team for the first task of the series and was later accused of having poor sales tactics in the boardroom. During The Apprentice’s opening episode, two teams battled it out to sell as many tickets to alpine tours in Austria as possible to gain the biggest profit. The online gift store owner said she felt she was “unlucky” to be fired from the competition first and felt the sales team all had equal “responsibility” for the failure of the task.
![[Sugar fired Rothwell after she failed to explain her low sales numbers]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/04/12/08/newFile-3.jpg)
“It could have been any one of us,” she said. However, Rothwell admitted there was one reason she was chosen to leave the competition over the other responsible entrepreneurs on her team: “When it came to final speech time, I didn’t realise it was final speech time and I went first so I gave rubbish answers,” she said. “If I could go back, that’d be the one thing that I would change because I do feel like if I’d have done that properly I might still be in there,” Rothwell added.
In the boardroom, Lord Sugar said: “Emma, you haven’t sold any tickets, and you haven’t explained to me what in fact you did do. It’s difficult but my gut feeling is telling me, Emma, it is with regret, you’re fired.”. Reflecting on her experience after the brutal elimination, Rothwell said she learned she needs to “back myself more” and “be more vocal in my abilities” from her brief time in the competition.
“I just wanted to go on the show to basically show people that a normal person can do well in business, that they don’t have to be nasty.” she added. In her three star review of The Apprentice, The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky said: “The tour challenge, too, feels a little over-familiar, and when the candidates return to London, the boardroom showdown lacks fireworks. Sugar looks like he’d rather be indulging in his favourite pastime of tweeting about EastEnders.
