The Apprentice: Sophie Falls Flat In Furniture Task

The Apprentice.

The 22-year-old restauranteur found herself in the boardroom with project leader Natalie Panayi and designer Uzma Yakoob after the girls' had lost the flat-pack furniture challenge.

And Lord Sugar opted to let her go after accusing her of "hiding"

Summing up as he prepared to point the finger, the business tycoon said: "Natalie, you claim that you're not a designer. You claim that you wanted to manage the designers. But what you didn't manage to do is produce a good product.

"Uzma, I've had a lot of complaints that you seem to never be responsible for anything, never going to be your fault. In your own words you are a design person. You should have done much better in this.

"Sophie, I think market research is a way of not being responsible for selling, not being responsible for the design of the product, not being responsible for manufacturing. I think you're hiding a little bit.

"I've come to the conclusion that out of the three of you here today, and this may be unfair, but my gut feeling tells me that, Sophie, you're fired."

The girls had lost the task by a massive margin, selling just 174 of their TidySidey units, compared to the boys' 3000-odd sales of their Foldo chair.

And boys' designer Alex Mills was singled out for special praise by Lord Sugar, who told him the chair was the best-designed item he had ever seen on the show.

Speaking to Yahoo later, Sophie said Uzma should have got the chop: "I do think when Natalie said 'Uzma you always do pass the buck', she really does.

"Uzma was so excited about this task. It is all about creativity, design. She prides herself on being a global make-up entrepreneur; she's got a creative eye. But you all saw that box, it was awful.

"I thought it was horrendous when she didn't hold up her hands and say 'I designed it'."

And speaking in the taxi after her sacking, she insisted that she was keeping her head held high.

"I honestly did what the Project Manager wanted me to do, and I did try.

"It's just we've got a lot of stubborn characters, a lot of bitchiness going on, and I like to keep my dignity and my class."

Tim Stillwell was fired last week after the beer task.

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