The Apprentice hopeful Shannon Martin made a shock decision to exit the show on Thursday evening’s episode, before she had even learnt her team won the challenge.
The 17th series of the BBC reality show returned to TV screens last week with 18 new candidates competing to win a life-changing investment of £250,000 from Lord Sugar.
Once again, The Apprentice delivered plenty of cringeworthy candidate fails after Lord Alan Sugar ’s hopefuls were tasked with manufacturing bao buns.
The episode delivered kitchen explosions followed by a grilling in the boardroom, which resulted in Lord Sugar raising his ominous finger to tell Dublin accountant Kevin D’Arcy he would be going home.
Yet, the second episode delivered a twist as fellow candidate and bridal boutique owner Shannon decided to leave the show amid ‘doubts’ over how the show could help her business.
Shannon has now opened up about why she left the process and said she felt she could not turn down ‘an opportunity of a lifetime’ which she will be ‘forever grateful for’.
She said: “During the bao bun task, I was there in the kitchen thinking ‘Why am I here? What am I doing here making bao buns in a kitchen when I can’t cook as it is?’.
“I just really felt like I couldn’t focus on the tasks because I was constantly thinking about what was going on at home.
“What’s happening with the business? Is everything okay? I knew in the back of my mind that of course everything would be okay, the team are amazing. But I’m a perfectionist.”
She continued: “I need to know what’s going on all the time and not being able to know how things were going on at home or what was happening at work was really hard for me.
“The unknown is definitely not something I’m good at. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, ‘Am I in here for the right reasons? Do I really want a business partner? Is this what I want? Do I want my life to change?’
“It really made me realise I love my life; I love the team and I love everything about my life.”
She concluded: “I knew that I could potentially win the show, and did I really want to win and have my life completely changed? No, I didn’t.
“I wasn’t in there for the right reasons. The other candidates are just amazing and there’s so many amazing businesses there that I felt that they deserve to win.
“I’ve already got a very successful business. I just felt that there were more deserving people there than me and it was not right for me to stay in the process.”
Shannon added that her two weeks on The Apprentice taught her ‘to listen to my gut’, adding: “If you’ve got a feeling, just go with it. If you have that feeling of what you want to do, just go with it and just do you.”
The Apprentice airs Thursdays on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
