Lord Alan Sugar has reportedly parted company with The Apprentice winning businesswoman Sarah Lynn.
Sarah made history in the 2017 series of the hit BBC One show by becoming the first joint-winner alongside James White, who split from the Amstrad founder himself in 2020.
An insider told the Sun : "This will have come as a huge blow for Sarah, though it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise for her.
"She joins a long line of entrepreneurs who won The Apprentice only to find themselves splitting with Lord Sugar some time later.
"The situation is obviously likely to attract greater attention because she was the first joint winner on the Beeb show."
Sarah, 40, runs Sweets In The City, a confectionary delivery service.
A statement on the company's web site reads: "In 2017, Sarah decided that her confectionery business was ready for huge growth and she applied to be a candidate on BBC One’s The Apprentice. Sarah walked away as one of two winners in a historic £500,000 'double hiring'. This was the first time in 13 series of The Apprentice that Lord Sugar doubled his investment in the final, naming two Apprentice winners for 2017 and declaring Sarah a 'fantastic expert in her field'.
"Sarah won The Apprentice because she demonstrated the potential of her business and all of the innovations she had planned for the future, such as the very well-received Letterbox Treats that are now available online."
Mogul Mr Sugar is yet to comment on the split. Last month, however, he confessed that the original format of the show backfired badly he decided to change it.
When it began in 2005 he rewarded winners with a mega-paid job, but this led to other staff amongst his firms becoming jealous.
The tycoon, 75, revealed: "A lot of people ignore the fact that the original format was that the winner would work for me for a six figure sum. That frankly never worked out too well as the winner had to work in one of my companies where people earned far less than that and were unhappy when they turned up.
"So we changed the format so the winner ends up in a 50/50 business with me and I inject £250,000 from day one. They run the business and I mentor them.
"It has been successful since we started that and we began doing that since series seven, and now we are on series 17."
The Mirror has contacted Alan Sugar's representatives for comment.
