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The Apprentice contestant Noor Bouziane has shared details behind her refusal to appear on this week’s companion show You’re Fired after her elimination from the competition.
Season 18 of the long-running business reality show is currently airing on BBC One, and on Thursday featured the candidates creating advertising campaigns for electric vans.
As one of episode eight’s two project managers, Bouziane led the marketing campaign for a van for clothing businesses to share their online products with customers. However, after Lord Sugar was unimpressed with her advert, and her lack of collaboration with other team members, Bouziane was fired from the process.
Noor Bouziane was eliminated fromThe Apprentice
(BBC/Naked)
Though the eliminated contestant usually appears on the panel show You’re Fired immediately after the episode, Bouziane did not feature on the programme.
In a two-part video posted on Instagram on Friday, the Liverpool-based entrepreneur stated that chose not to appear on You’re Fired in solidarity with previously fired candidate Dr Asif Munaf, whose scenes were removed from the programme in February over some of his social media posts were deemed antisemitic.
She also claimed to have had a “really negative experience” while on the show.
After beginning her message by acknowledging the supporters she’d had during her time on the show, Bouziane said that while watching the episodes at the same time as the rest of the public, she voiced her concerns over the choice of scenes that producers had chosen to broadcast.
Bouziane addressed her refusal to appear on the follow up episode
(Instagram – Noor Bouziane)
“I just knew that the edits were not going to be in my favour this season,” she said, adding: “As a business owner, I honestly did not get represented the right way.”
She then claimed that edits excluded an order for her to “make all the decisions” on the task – something that she was criticised for by other candidates on the show. “I got told to do everything myself – I look like a crazy woman who doesn’t respect people who have degrees,” Bouziane said.
She then explained that after she’d felt unsupported by the production team behind the show, she was moved to refuse an appearance on You’re Fired after the show edited out Munaf’s scenes, following his posts about Israel and Gaza.
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“Our brother Asif tweeted about what’s happening in Gaza, and he actually went to the ‘you’ve been fired’ show,” Bouziane explained.
“He took his whole family to the ‘you’ve been fired’ show’, and because of a tweet that the whole Muslim nation – like, we all stand behind him and we all have the same beliefs – they cut him off the show.
“And then they expected me to go on the show and give my time, my energy, my talent? No, no, no, no,” she continued.
Addressing her team on the show before she was kicked off
(BBC / FreemantleMedia Ltd)
“If you literally cancel one of us, you’ve cancelled all of us. So whatever you’ve done to affect him has affected me and has affected the whole Ummah [the Islamic community].”
Elsewhere, she criticised The Apprentice for what she deems a lack of support after the show.
“The support you get when you leave the show is zero; if anything, they add more to your stress,” she said. “And you know, me being 22 years old, and the youngest, there’s literally no support whatsoever on the show that you give so much to.”
She also claimed that the stress of the experience had driven her to “leave the UK and go to Morocco for a month to really heal and get my mind right, because it was too much”.
The Independent has reached out to Bouziane for further comment. The BBC said in a statement: “We have a duty of care to all candidates and their welfare is of the utmost importance to us. We take the welfare of anyone involved in The Apprentice extremely seriously and have thorough and robust measures in place to ensure everyone feels supported before, during and after filming takes place.
“We have a dedicated welfare team who are there to support candidates through the process, and we are proactive in ensuring our welfare procedures are under constant review and updated with each series. Like all candidates, Noor has had access to any support she needs, and this is ongoing, even now she has left the process.”
