He's suing Stella to prove a point and, quite honestly, I don't blame him. If I were in his shoes I would be doing exactly the same thing! Stella's case should have never been brought to court, basically, because she didn't have a case at all.

No, he doesn't need the money if he wins ( and I honestly can't see him losing) and could well afford to donate his award to charity. I rather think he will do so, anyway.

I expect that he will. He does a lot for charity.

I did read somewhere that he donates his entire fee for doing The Apprentice to charity.

Alas, there MUST have been a case for it to go to court...

I still feel for Stella, you can't win against a corporation.

He did at one point, and I believe there are mutterings that he did Young Apprentice for peanuts - which would make sense given how much he wanted the series to happen.

I doubt he does that anymore though, I think it's hard not to notice that he seems a bit weary with the show these days. Whereas in Series 1-2 he was having a great time raising his profile and in Series 3-6 he was in his element.

That's got nothing to do with the case though. She had no chance of winning because she had nothing but personal trauma and verbal altercations to back up her case with.

Stella's evidence as presented in the media seems to have largely consisted of herself whining about how she wasn't treated like the Queen of Sheba, about how she was maybe expected to work her way up just like everyone else in the corporation. and how her colleagues/staff in the workplace just maybe felt a little bit bitter about getting a job there out of a reality show.

Then she was basically forced to admit that she was sacked because she refused to learn her place.

I'm honestly staggered that it ever got that far.

If he's weary with it, I don't know why he doesn't leave. He doesn't need the money from it. He has said that he will never leave The Apprentice, and will keep doing it until the BBC cancels the series (or axes him and finds someone else I suppose, but I think it's more likely that they'll cancel it.)


She wasn't even sacked, she left.

I do see The Rhydler's point that there is a problem with individuals taking on corporations and the law being biased in the corporation's favour, but in the case of Stella I think that her argument just doesn't stack up anyway.

Yes, I'm sure Sugar's lawyers span it that way.

I'd rather believe Stella's stories of ostracizing and poor treatment.

So are you ultimately saying that regardless of what either party says and regardless of the official records of the case, you're on Stella's side against Lord Sugar and that's that? I think that's very biased, and not really giving Sugar's company a fair chance to defend itself.

On the contrary, I don't think Stella has had the opportunity to defend herself, relying solely on the media, a media who adore Sugar.

Have you read the record of the court case? That has the details of everything that happened in court, and it's a public document.

Yes, but whats true is that Sugar had no interaction with Stella, and dumped her in one of his subsidiary companies.

He could dump me out the back washing his Bentley for £100,000 a year.

And where in the show did anyone say that her job would involve interaction with Lord Sugar? Sure, it was implied - but everyone, including Lord Sugar, Nick, Karren, and the interviewers always say "working FOR Lord Sugar".

And surely she would have realised that. He's such a powerful man that it would have to be an incredibly prestigious job to be working alongside him.

So both those points in conjunction mean that there's no way I can take that as a knock against the show or the company. She got everything that was ever reasonably on offer from the show. Every other winner was either happy with it or decided it wasn't for them and left in a professional manner. Stella didn't. She is the one who has the issue here.

The Apprentice' winner Yasmina Siadatan

What did you make of his recent court case, when he was sued for constructive dismissal by former Apprentice winner Stella English?
I was so pleased for him when he won. It was horrible – a really worrying time actually. I know Lord Sugar really well and it was devastating to think that there was a possibility that she could have really dragged his name through the mud. I’ve got an affinity towards the guy, I really like him personally, and to think that someone else has been given an opportunity – and that's all the Apprentice is, an opportunity for you to make of it what you will – to not grasp it with both hands is a real shame. But had it not gone in his favour, I'd have been so shocked.

Also this bit is interesting.

Is the boardroom as terrifying as it seems?
Yep. And it takes a very long time to film those scenes. It can take all day, actually. There's boardroom one, when you go over what both teams have been up to. They keep both teams separate back at the house, so you don't find out what the other team have been up to until you go in there. The production team are very good at making sure that happens. Then boardroom two is when the losing team are battling it out between themselves to try and make sure you’re not in the final three. Boardroom three is when someone gets fired. So if you're in the firing line, you could have spent your whole day fighting for your life in there. And yes – it's as terrifying as it looks.

What's it like living in that house?
Well, each task is either a one day, two day or three day task, like you see on TV. Once you're part of the show you don't leave the house – you stay in there, without a mobile phone, without any money or credit cards, no identity – you're part of it until you're fired. Obviously I wasn't fired so for me it was from the moment I entered until I left. There are 300 hours of filming for every one hour of show.
http://www.hellomagazine.com/celebri...ner-interview/

Thanks for this, it's very interesting! I tend to believe Yasmina over Stella; she just came across as a more honest person to me.

I don't understand how they don't have mobile phones though - we see them using mobile phones on the tasks. Obviously they don't have their mobile phones, but they clearly have some that are given to them for the show.

Some of the tasks, it clearly wasn't his fault that he was on the losing team though.

Exactly - he was on the losing team on the first five tasks, and he wasn't in the final boardroom on any of them. What does that say?

Every week in the edit, he'd speak to the camera bemoaning his ability to win a task, sell or do anything. He knew he wasn't particularly good, but knew that his BP was worth it.

Well I hardly think its his fault that when they went to France, that Mel just conducted poor market research. And there were other tasks where we could pinpoint the failure of the task, very little of it down to Tom.

I didn't think his business plan was that good - the chair had loads of flaws. Maybe Tom thought it was amazing, but Lord Sugar certainly didn't.

I think what she means is that they don't have a mobile phone where they can access the internet and send/receive personal texts & calls... The phones that they use for the tasks will have a lot of services restricted on them.

It was Tom's fault that he failed to stand up to Mel in any way, though.

In that case - its the other side of the coin. Rather than contribute badly he didn't contribute at all.

They were all warned before filming started this can happen. It's in the tribunal report linked to earlier. Nothing that happened to Stella was unexpected. Also Sugar has no company to employ people in other than the subsidiary businesses. So they will never work directly for or with him. When she left that job he placed her with a business he doesn't own, paying her salary with no benefit to him at all for the remainder of the year. There she did well but didn't do anything to make a case for staying permanently, as she was invited to do. Sounds to me like she didn't really want that position either, or expected it to be given to her on a plate.