I won The Apprentice & every step of the final is torture… I only learned I’d won MONTHS later on day the episode aired
APPRENTICE fans are just hours away from finding out who has won the series and a life-changing £250,000 from Lord Alan Sugar.
This year’s final will see the BBC show mogul, who’s worth a whopping £1.24billion, choose between pie maker Phil Turner and fitness entrepreneur Rachel Woolford.
It follows 11 long weeks of grueling tasks, dressing-downs from Lord Sugar and plenty of business blunders.
One person who knows the “immense pressure” of the final task is Joseph Valente, who won The Apprentice in 2015 with his plumbing business.
But according to the entrepreneur, 35, not all is how it appears on the show, with strict secret rules make tasks “even harder” and finalists left unaware of who had actually won due to producers filming two endings.
Joseph, founder of Trade Mastermind, tells The Sun: “I was definitely surprised when they told us they would film two endings – one where each of us won. They told us about two minutes before it happened.
“We had been filming for 10 weeks and I thought I would find out if I won on that day. So it was a bit frustrating, but when they explained why, I completely understood.
“It was just because they had to do due diligence and see if any issues were found post-filming that meant Lord Sugar couldn’t possibly pick you as his business partner.
“Let’s say, for example, if you had any skeletons in your closet, then Lord Sugar may not be able to align you with his brand and that could stop you from winning.
“It allowed the show time to look at your accounts, check your insurance and that you have legitimate qualifications to make sure everything was legit, which is really important.
“I found out I’d won on the morning that the show aired, I met with Lord Sugar and he told me the wait was to make sure there weren’t any problems that he didn’t know about.”
In the final task, Joseph and dating app founder Vana Koutsomitis had to make a digital billboard and promotional video for their business – as well as pitch the company to 200 industry specialists.
To add an extra spanner in the works, they had to choose former Apprentice castmates to join their team – and according to Joseph that could have been “risky”.
He says: “There were a couple of people on Vana’s side that I’m glad I didn’t get, they wouldn’t have served me in that scenario and I really hadn’t worked well with them before.
“Fortunately the people on my team didn’t try to set me up, I had a really, really good team who supported me. I wanted to make sure that I won”
‘Secret rules’
In the boardroom, Joseph was accused of “faffing around” for most of the first day by Lord Sugar’s aide Baroness Karren Brady.
But according to the star, there was a good reason for it.
Joseph said: “What people don’t see on the show is that there is a ‘rule book’ in every task that makes it 10 times harder than it would be in real life.
“You’re limited on names, the colours you can use and other things – for example, you don’t have a complete pick of a colour palette for logos so you have to pick random ones.
“This can lead to things looking incorrect, which can make you look more stupid.
“They do it because they don’t want you to come up with an incredible product or service because that isn’t entertaining.”
In the final, this led him to “go through 30 or 40 names” for his business before he settled on Prime Time Plumbers.
The second Lord Sugar asked why her business was better than mine she turned on me in an instant and stabbed me in the back straight away.
Joseph Valente
“You have to ring through to compliance with the name and they either accept or reject them,” Joseph added.
“You had to get everything signed off, which puts more pressure on you. They may turn down a name because another company has registered it.”
‘Cut-throat game’
Joseph recalls it being “deadly silent” in the house for the finals as they were always wary of the live-in chaperones, who monitored their every move like “spies”.
Preparing to go into the boardroom for the final time was “intense” and Joseph says his co-star Vana made a “peace offering” of a can of cider the night before “savaging him” in front of Lord Sugar.
He says: “I thought, ‘You’ve made a big mistake’ and found it really funny that she had tried to butter me up and then attacked me.
“That’s the savagery of The Apprentice for you. But I don’t hold any hard feelings, she did what she had to to try to win.”
The Apprentice biggest moments
THE Apprentice has been a fan favourite ever since it burst onto the box in 2005.
Here we take a look at five of the biggest moments over the years on the hit BBC One show.
Tim Campbell – Former London Underground transport manager Tim Campbell won the first series of the reality show in 2005. He is now one of Lord Sugar’s aides on the show.
Sarah Lynn and James White – For the first and only time in the show’s history, both finalists were crowned winners in 2017.
Amy Anzel – Season 16’s fired candidate Amy Anzel was BANNED from the final celebration show, after a tit-for-tat exchange over Lord Sugar’s mocking tweets.
Michelle Dewberry – Telecoms consultant Michelle Dewberry won the second series of the show in 2006. However, after winning a six-figure job with Lord Sugar she lasted just four months before she sensationally quit.
Selena Waterman-Smith – We’re used to tensions running high in the boardroom, but in 2015 a disagreement between two candidates spilled over – for the first time – into a physical bust-up. Events manager Selina Waterman-Smith was given a verbal warning by show bosses for her role in an off-camera scrap with Charleine Wain.
‘Hours in silence’
While waiting to see Lord Sugar, Joseph says they had to sit in silence for two hours and if they tried to talk producers would tell them off.
He said: “They were standing there watching you the whole time. Not being able to talk was brutal, but they needed to control the gold that might come out in the boardroom. They didn’t want to miss a moment.
“So we had to sit in silence while the producers played on their phones, which really built the pressure”
“They kept saying ‘You’ve been on The Apprentice!’ and I was like, ‘No, I wasn’t.’ Then they showed me the photo and said, ‘Well, who’s this then standing next to Claude?’
Joseph
Joseph compared producers to “teachers in a classroom” and said even a whisper would be picked up on due them wearing microphones.
“If you said anything that was it,” he said. “They knew straight away and would say, ‘Stop talking!”
‘Forced laughter’
Lord Sugar is renowned for his quips and candidates regularly burst into hysterical laughter after his one-liners.
But Josephs claims their chuckles aren’t necessarily real.
“You always laugh because you want to impress Lord Sugar,” he says. “You want to be seen by him for a good reason.
“If you don’t get to talk that much you need to find a way to communicate with him in the boardroom and show you are listening.”
Winner delay
After filming the two endings, the candidates return to normal life and wait months before finding out if they are victorious.
“It was really weird,” Joseph says. “You get given your phone and wallet back, which you haven’t had for 10 weeks, and then you go home.
“I took a cab to Kings Cross and my phone blew up with messages because I had been locked out of it for 10 weeks while in The Apprentice bubble.
“Filming ended in June and we had to wait until October for the show to air. We didn’t know who had won but I was 99 per cent sure it was me.”
I had been expelled from school and was a bit naughty as a teenager so I felt I owed it to my mum to do something incredible with my life.
Joseph
Candidates are instructed not to tell anyone they are on the show – including their work colleagues and family members.
“Before going on the show, I had a decent-sized company that brought in half a million a year. I had to come up with a lie to explain my absence,” he says.
“I emailed telling them, ‘I’ve got to go away, my aunt lives on an Italian goat farm in the mountains and she’s ill. There’s no phone signal or WiFi so you won’t hear from me.
“When I came back, everyone was like ‘Where have you been? There’s no way you could have been gone for two-and-a-half months and not had phone signal or internet.’
“They constantly asked where I had I really been. What made it worse was someone had taken a photo of me with Claude Littner on a task in Manchester and tagged it ‘The Apprentice’.
“They kept saying ‘You’ve been on The Apprentice!’ and I was like, ‘No, I wasn’t.’ Then they showed me the photo and said, ‘Well, who’s this then standing next to Claude?’
“It was obviously me but I had to try to play it down and keep it quiet until the show aired.”
Joseph says his “whole life changed overnight” after winning The Apprentice and despite parting ways with Lord Sugar two years later, he’s grateful to have been on the show.
They don’t want you to come up with an incredible product or service because that isn’t entertaining.
Joseph
Three years ago, he launched Trade Mastermind – a company that trains people within trades and construction businesses – which he says is worth eight figures and will become “a billion-dollar empire”.
Joseph, who has a YouTube series called Unfinished Business, credits The Apprentice with helping him to “build an incredible career”.
He says: “Winning the show was a fantastic moment and was such a special moment.
“I had been expelled from school and was a bit naughty as a teenager so I felt I owed it to my mum to do something incredible with my life.”
The Apprentice finals airs at 9pm tonight on BBC One. You can watch Joseph Valente’s YouTube series Unfinished Business here.
