Fiona Bruce has revealed how Alan Sugar screamed and swore at her during her "toughest" ever interview.
The news presenter, 58, recalled a time when she did an hour-long profile on the Apprentice star, 75, which was filmed over five days many years ago.
In an interview woman & home, Fiona spoke of the moment Lord Alan "really lost his temper", describing it as her most difficult interview to date.
"We went on Sir Alan’s plane and it wasn’t long after he’d said how he wouldn’t employ a woman without asking if she was going to get pregnant. Obviously, that caused an outcry as well as being discriminative," she explained.
"If you’re doing a programme over five days, you save the stuff where the subject’s going to dislike you thoroughly until the end, so I brought up the thing about pregnant women and he really lost his temper."
She added: "He said something like, 'And now see what you’ve f***ing done! Are you f***ing happy now?!’ I got the massive hairdryer treatment, but was thinking all the time, ‘This is going to be brilliant television!’."
However, her producer was busy changing the tape at the time and didn't get to film any part of the conversation.
Fiona has had a long and fruitful career, with the star joining the BBC as a researcher for Panorama in 1989.
She then became the first female newsreader on the BBC News at Ten. She also presents for BBC News at Six, Crimewatch, Real Story, Antiques Roadshow and Fake or Fortune?
Since the beginning of 2019, she has been the presenter of the BBC One television programme Question Time.
In 2020, it was reported that Fiona had been romping up the ranking to enter BBC's top 10 list of best-paid presenters.
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Her pay check is said to have doubled between 2019 and 2020.
While her salary – which was believed to be an impressive £400,000 per year – would have made her one of four women within the top 10 best-paid stars.
The Sun claimed Fiona had seen her salary increase from £259,999 for her work on BBC1 in the 2019/2020 period – however, the figure only included 10 episodes of Question Time that had been released at the time of figures being calculated.
*The August issue of woman&home is on sale Thursday 30 July 2022
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