Evicted Apprentice hopeful Carlo Brancati is convinced Lord Sugar wanted to keep him instead of saying “You’re fired” on the show tonight.

The confident 38-year-old from Middlesborough insists he gave the show boss no alternative because he didn’t speak up enough. But he says if he had been smarter in the boardroom one of his rivals like account manager Max England would have gone home instead.

Carlo said: “I’ll never know if it’s true or not, but I believe Lord Sugar wanted to keep me. I know that sounds a bit bizarre, but I think genuinely, he wanted to keep me, and he just wanted me to express or say something.

“The card I should have played was, ‘Look Lord sugar, give me a leadership position next week, that’s all I want and let’s talk’.

“I think that would have been enough to convince Lord Sugar. I should have spoken with greater confidence. I’ve applied for jobs, you know, in the past, and I’ve always kept my cards close to my chest. Don’t say too much. Speak once when spoken to. But I think, yeah, I think you need to find that balance between making a contribution, but then don’t be too nice or look like a threat. What I have learnt from going on the show is don’t take a back seat.”

Carlo was sent packing after a poor performance in the third task which saw the two teams trying to buy nine items as cheaply as possible.

Carlo was only heavily involved in one trade and risked annoying the shop owner by starting negotiations for the quill at less than 50% of the retail price. He also clashed with project manager Max but he insists he has “full respect” for him now and that he handled the situation and the boardroom showdown better than he did.

Carlo was also painted as a kind of villain in the series who rubbed other candidates the wrong way. But asked about how he was edited on the BBC series, Carlo shrugged it off and said: “I do believe I’ve had a bit of fun, and the same time, at least I got some good air time. Episode One was mainly me and Nadia. So I’m just humbled that I got so much air time, basically, whether it was, whether it was for good or bad reasons, I was seen on the TV. So I was pretty chuffed with that.

“From the viewer perspective, you guys think that the premise starts after week one, but it doesn’t. We’ve done levels before that. We went to auditions. We’ve had to sit in front of people. And we’ve had to pitch, defend our business ideas. So really, we started way, way before our time.

“I’m not saying this as a defence mechanism, but the real, real challenge is getting on the show itself. Of course, if you can progress through the show, then great, but that’s a challenge in itself, just making it on there and I was so humbled to do so.”

Carlo now hopes to launch his own consultancy business for hair transplants. He had several transplants himself a few years ago and believes the industry is hard to navigate for anyone thinking of having the procedure which is where he could come in as an advisor which a comparison website.

He said: “I’m not saying I didn’t need lordship as investment. Of course, that would have been a great injection to the business. But nonetheless, what I do is a huge passion of mine, and I just know in my heart of parts, it’s going to be a success. The demand is there.

“I’m a consultant at the moment, but because I work alone, it’s very demanding. It’s very taxing, right? I’ve gotta engage with doctors, with patients. It’s how you scale that. So put that into the form of a website.

“It’s a service that I would have used personally. I was 33 I’m now 38 right? Going back to that was my challenge. How the hell do I navigate this market? So I was forced to research the hell out of it. So it’s now using that knowledge that I’ve gained and putting that into a service. I think it would be potentially one of the best businesses to ever enter The Apprentice.”

* The Apprentice continues next Thursday on BBC1 and the series is available on BBC iPlayer.

Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

Get the biggest TV headlines, recaps and insider knowledge straight to your inbox