Claude Littner doesn’t care if contestants cry on ‘The Apprentice’.
The 69-year-old businessman serves as an adviser to Lord Alan Sugar on the BBC reality show, and has said that when he travels with the business partner hopefuls to monitor what they get up to during their tasks, he often "ignores" them, and doesn’t bat an eye when they get upset.
Speaking to the Daily Star Sunday newspaper, he said: "I am rude to all of them. I want them to be wary of me, so I ignore them throughout. If they’re upset it’s none of my business – I’m not their nursemaid. It’s not my problem, it’s somebody else’s.
"I’m not going to go up to them and say, ‘Oh you poor thing, what a shame’. Sometimes people get upset. That’s just what happens.
"When they’re crying that’s got nothing to do with me. If they break down in tears all I’ll do is write ‘She’s crying’ in my notes.
"My job is to advise Lord Sugar what happens. So I note down as best I can what happens."
Claude insists the reason he doesn’t interact with the contestants is because he doesn’t want to show favouritism, and says he "doesn’t care about any of them".
He added: "If I’m friendly with one of them then they might think I like them more than the others.
"I don’t show any favouritism. I do not care about any of them. I literally do not care. I never say ‘Hello’ or ‘Good morning’. If they try to talk to me I look at them with disdain. If I did chat with them, people could say I had favourites, which I don’t.
"I don’t care if it’s a woman or a man. I don’t care about anything apart from how they’re doing in the tasks."
And the stern businessman says candidates are often "petrified" of him, especially when it comes to checking over their business proposals during the tough interview round of the competition.
He said: "The candidates are petrified and they don’t want to antagonise me because it might have a detrimental effect on them. They realise pretty well that I’m not someone who is going to befriend them."
Claude Littner ‘doesn’t care’ about Apprentice contestants
