She was fired halfway through the process of last year's series of The Apprentice, and Amy Anzel has slammed the BBC One business competition as "car crash TV" while calling for business magnate Lord Alan Sugar to be "fired." Beauty boss Amy, who was shown the door by Lord Sugar in week six, told us that series 17 is a difficult watch for her.
Amy has seen her beauty brand Hollywood Browzer Beauty, stocked by the likes of Boots, River Island, Amazon and Argos, go from strength to strength. Last week she was thrilled to learn that her dermaplaning beauty tools will now be sold in the Middle East after being snapped up here in the UK, in her homeland America and as far as Australia and New Zealand.
"It's very hard to watch the show. I feel so sorry for the candidates," she told us. "They never celebrate the small wins. In business you have bad days but it's always so negative and it's getting worse and worse. These are the young entrepreneurs of the future and they are making fun of them all the time."
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Amy told us that a stand-out awkward moments for her this series was the week five task to create an advertising concept to sell electric motorbikes, and one group hired an actress that couldn't ride a bike for their ad after being presented with options of riders and non-riders. The mistake led to failure for the team led by motorbike enthusiast Bradley Johnson, who despaired at the delegated casting oversight and ended up co-starring in the ad himself.
One viewer @DanielDm27 poked fun on Twitter: "Yeah, get someone who can’t ride a bike to advertise a bike. That’s like getting someone with a peanut allergy to advertise peanut butter."
But @harrisonjbrock made the point: "If you need them to be able to ride a motorbike why is there options of people who can’t??? The show literally just sets them up to fail lmao." And Amy agrees, saying: "These are real entrepreneurs and it's damaging."
She said: "When someone says they are an expert in something you know they are going to lose. I knew once Bradley said he was a petrolhead that he was going to lose. Thank god I didn't make it to TV shopping week. They can control the narrative."
Amy believes it's time for a shake-up for the show, which launched back in 2005. The Apprentice sees a batch of ambitious entrepreneurs seeking to demonstrate their business sense as they compete to win £250,000 investment and the chance to go into a business partnership with Lord Sugar, with 18 candidates divided into two teams whittled down over the weeks.
Amy believes the show should be more celebratory of the achievements, saying: "I believe it's making fools of people and no-one takes it seriously anymore. People think the candidates are jokes and it's a set-up, but they have to look dumb to make for car crash TV."
Amy believes it's time for Lord Sugar, 75, to bow out to make way for a new tycoon to take the helm. The British entrepreneur has agreed to do two more series, taking him to his 19th, and he's said he'd be "delighted to do a 20th." "It's time for new blood and Richard Branson would bring a new era," she said. "To me it poorly represents entrepreneurs in the UK."
Amy was also disappointed by the move to send candidates abroad twice this series, to Antigua to sell bespoke tours in episode one and last Thursday they jetted off to Dubai to run corporate away-day experiences. "They need to celebrate Britain. Why go to Dubai?" she asked. "I think it's about what looks nice on camera. So why not go to Ireland or Scotland?
"Of course we want entertainment but if everything is 'sell, sell, sell' it's getting hard to watch, having to watch them mess up time and time again. In Brighton they were sent on a wild goose chase."
During her time in the contest New Yorker Amy was fired by Lord Sugar with a scathing dig about her not becoming a project manager, despite her being sub team leader in four out of six tasks. He referenced how she had lived in Los Angeles and asked her if she was an 'LA Dodger'.
He sniped: "You dodged the project management side of things, you've been here six weeks to show that you can do something, and you haven't shown me you can do something. And so it is with regret that you're fired. Thank you."
Amy, who launched her brand in 2017 starting with just a £5,000 budget, says this was an unfair decision, but is proud to be celebrating success without the billionaire tycoon having a stake in her business. "If that was a big problem make me PM," she said about her firing. "I wasn't hiding from the role of leader."
Amy was born in New York but has lived in London for the past 12 years and is a regular visitor to Manchester. Her celeb pals in the city include Coronation Street stars Katie McGlynn, Lisa George and Victoria Ekanoye and model Rhian Sugden.
As a former actress and producer Amy spent hours in make-up trailers and backstage dressing rooms around the world and picked up tips and tricks from various makeup artists and Hollywood stars. At Christmas she enjoyed being back on stage in panto starring as The Spirit of the Ring in Aladdin in Carlisle.
Representatives for The Apprentice declined to comment.
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