SECRET rules Apprentice candidates must live by have been laid bare – including sex bans and mobile phone restrictions.
The BBC hit, launched in 2005, sees business people battle it out in the boardroom to get investment from Lord Sugar.
For the duration of the series, contestants vying to impress the billionaire live, sleep, work and eat together in a North London mansion.
But they are bound by an array of rules, according to several former contestants, which may surprise fans of the show.
Tim Campbell — the Apprentice’s first winner-turned adviser — revealed: “No one is going to the loo! These people are after £250,000.
“Once you’re in the boardroom, those doors are closed, and those scenes can go on for hours.
“When candidates are in the foyer, they have to be ready for a session that does not stop until Lord Sugar has made a decision — and he’s meticulous.”
Needing the bathroom is not the only limitation, with previous candidates also revealing a sex ban.
The no nookie rule was introduced in 2019 after two contestants bedded each other in the show’s Hampstead mansion.
Bridal shop entrepreneur Shannon Martin appeared on the Apprentice in 2023.
Speaking to The Sun last year, she noted the restrictions on clothing, hair and mobile phones.
Shannon explained they usually have 15 minutes to make themselves presentable before facing Lord Alan Sugar at the crack of dawn.
She said: “We have to do our own hair and makeup on task days, so when you see us running about Antigua, all of that is us doing our own hair and makeup.
“But During boardroom days we do get our hair and makeup done which is such a treat.
“There was only four people that was in my close circle who knows where we had gone and we allowed to speak to them once a week, so that included James my partner.”
No one is going to the loo! These people are after £250,000
Tim Chapman, Apprentice winner-turned-adviser
Thomas Skinner, who appeared in series 15 of the Apprentice in 2019, added: “You’re not allowed phones.
“When you go into the house, they take your phones and possessions off you.
“You get one call every week for five minutes to speak to your family.”
2022 winner Harpreet Kaur previously said candidates are chaperoned everywhere and also bemoaned the mobile phone restrictions.
She revealed: “On the show, we are not allowed access to your phone and not allowed anywhere without a chaperone and with the food on task days you had catering.
RULES, RULES, RULES...
Rules Apprentice contestants must stick by include:
- No news, phones, or internet during filming
- Chaperoned everywhere
- Sex ban
- One five-minute phone call a week to someone who has signed an NDA
- 15 minutes to get ready
“You get fed breakfast, lunch and dinner – I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t the best catering, usually a cold quiche.
“If it was a boardroom day, we’d be allowed a takeaway in the evening, but we’d all order from the same place.
“And then on days off, you would have to cook for yourself.”
The Apprentice continues on Thursday at 9pm.
