Apprentice loser lays blame for his exit from Lord Sugar’s boardroom

Thursday, April 5, 2012
12.03 PM

Apprentice reject Michael Copp blamed gastric flu for his sacking by Lord Sugar on the hit BBC show, last night (Wednesday).

The 32-year-old from Barking in east London got into trouble during the task when a batch of overcooked Mediterranean table sauce plunged Team Phoenix into chaos - forcing a sharp rise in the sale price.

“I had gastric flu, and it really affected me. When you’re in a stressful situation like that it just made it twice as hard.” said Copp.

“I didn’t harp on, but the contestants knew about it, so maybe that was a tactical thing.”

He insisted it was wrong for him to even be in the final three who faced the sack by Amstrad tycoon, Lord Sugar – formerly Sir Alan.

On project leader, Katie Wright, who hauled him into the boardroom to face the music, Copp said: “Katie didn’t do a good job. She should have briefed us and said ‘We need to sell this product as cheap as we can.’”

“If everyone had known this from the start I think everyone would have been a little more conscious of it. She was running the task, and she should have directed it a lot more,” said the ex-apprentice.