BBC's The Apprentice will soon be drawing to a close with two hopefuls vying for Lord Sugar's personal investment of £250,000.
What's been a jam-packed series full of blunders, terrible marketing designs and nonstop bickering in the board room, the 16th series of the business show will be one to remember. The series finale will see the last two entrepreneurs go head to head as they launch their new business in style.
Over an intensive three-day challenge they must create a new brand for their company, produce a digital billboard and direct and edit a television advertisement. Then they must pitch to Lord Sugar and a room full of industry experts.
READ MORE: Who's in The Apprentice final and when does it air?
The final will see Harpreet Kaur and Kathryn Burn going head to head for the personal investment money and the title of being Lord Sugar's winner. The final will air at 9pm on BBC1 and will be available on iPlayer shortly after the broadcast has finished.
If you have ever closely followed The Apprentice you may have wondered what life is actually like for the contestants. The Mirror reported how things aren't actually as they first appear on the show, with past contestants revealing the shocking truth behind the scenes.
The exits are filmed before the process even begins
We are all familiar with the tragic sight of a fired candidate wheeling their suitcase out of Lord Sugar's office building and heading into a black cab. But that shot is actually filmed before the process even begins.
Claude Littner tweeted that's why they all wear coats and scarves - for continuity when the shot is resumed as they talk about their exit in the back of the taxi. He wrote: "All the firings are done before the show starts. They are wrapped up for ‘continuity’ not to show that the clothes are not those worn when fired."
Cut off from outside world
Contestants have mobile phones given to them during the course of the show, but the internet function is disabled to ensure they can't cheat in tasks or secretly contact their loved ones back home. This means they have no idea about what is going on in the outside world, with Lottie Lion revealing when she wrapped filming on her series, she had no idea Theresa May had resigned as Prime Minister and Meghan Markle had given birth to baby Archie.
They are allowed one five-minute phone call per day, but it has to be with a pre-approved person who has signed a non-disclosure agreement. Letters are allowed, but they must be vetted by producers before they are sent.
Lottie said on TikTok: "My nana used to write me letters and there would be large sections blanked out. The BBC would read them first and anything in there I wasn’t allowed to know, they wouldn’t let me read it."
Before heading on to the show, candidates are only allowed to tell three people, and they must lie to everyone else about where they are going, according to series nine's Jaz Ampaw-Farr. They are never allowed to speak to the public unless they are chaperoned and on camera - and if they secure a sale but it wasn't filmed, the money doesn't count towards their overall total.
Lottie added: "If it didn't happen on camera, it didn't happen at all." The contestants can't even go to the toilet on their own either.
18-hour days and waiting in silence
Joseph Valente, who won the show in 2015, claimed candidates work 18 hours a day. He added that teammates drive for hours to the various shooting locations and are banned from speaking unless the camera is rolling.
The dad-of-one claimed he and his fellow teammates spent hours in a silent, dark room before they entered the boardroom waiting room, and even then they remained there for another silent four hours before finally being called in by Lord Sugar's receptionist.
Joseph also said candidates have no choice over their meals, and according to former star Raef Bjayou, it's not exactly a delectable cuisine. He said: "The food that we used to be given… I mean, it was like the kind of shopping list a six-year-old who was heading into Asda would come back with. The E numbers were extraordinary. There were Skittles, chocolate bars… It wasn’t necessarily the kind of food required to sustain you."
Secret scripts
Many fans are left wondering every year whether Lord Sugar actually comes up with his brutal one-liners himself. The short answer is no - according to Lottie Lion.
She claimed: "Lord Sugar’s jokes in the boardroom, yeah he doesn’t write any of them. They’re all scripted and he has a piece of paper and he marks them off as he says them."
However, former candidate Ryan-Mark Parsons rushed to the billionaire's defence, claiming Lottie was wrong. He said: "Lottie’s allegations about The Apprentice are completely false. Being at the receiving end of many of Lord Sugar’s jokes, I can assure you they’re not 'scripted'."
The timings are even wilder than you think
Karren Brady has previously revealed the entire series is crammed into just five weeks of filming. So when candidates are seen bleary-eyed and messy-haired, answering a phone call at 4am - it really is that early in the morning.
Explaining that filming often finishes at 10pm each night only for the candidates to start again at 4am the next day, she said: "The task has to be set really early in the morning to give them enough time. It really is a very hard-working show. The only few days they get off is when the interviews come... everyone is knackered by the end – including me and Claude."
And series 12 contestant Frances Bishop has also claimed they get far less time on tasks than it appears. He told RadioTimes: "You don’t actually get as long as you think on task. The public think you [have] eight hours selling – in reality, you don’t because you have a camera crew with you, you’ve got to clear places for filming.
"You think it’s just you with eight candidates, but you’ve actually got a sound guy, a camera crew, and then you’ve got poor Karren following after you."
Karren and Claude aren't always watching
It might look like Karren and Claude Littner, who this year has been replaced by former winner Tom Campbell, follow the teams' every move. In the lead-up to the contestants squirming in the boardroom, Lord Sugar's aides scrunch up their noses and roll their eyes at the baffling slogans and brutal bust-ups that go on during the challenges.
But according to Lottie, they aren't actually present for the whole process. She revealed: "Karren Brady and Claude Littner are only following you about 30 per cent of the time and it’s always when you mess up. The pressure of them being there puts you on edge."
Producers do a test-run of tasks
Before the candidates are given their next daunting task, a dry run is actually undertaken by the show bosses to check the logistics.
Karren said: "They do a dry run to make sure tasks are possible – that you can go out and buy those items and how much you should be getting them for. There is an enormous amount of work that goes into each task."
The boardroom isn't real
The boardroom where Lord Sugar rants and raves at the contestants is not actually real at all - it's a constructed set at a studio near West Acton. As up to 20 people need to be able to fit in there, the Amstrad mogul's real offices weren't suitable.
The BBC said: "In order to set up and manoeuvre those cameras properly without interrupting proceedings, the series director needs to work from a gallery. Therefore it is not possible to film the boardroom scenes from Lord Sugar’s real boardroom."
