Lord Alan Sugar has hinted he will quit ‘The Apprentice’ when he reaches 20 years of the show.
This year’s series of the BBC business programme – which first aired in 2005 – had to be axed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and while the entrepreneur would love to do more, he admitted he could fire himself from the boardroom by 2025.
He said: "I said last year that I wanted to do 20 years. We would have been doing series 16 this year and I was happy to do four more.
"But of course it is the BBC who will decide if they wish to do it. I fully understand they are in charge but if they wanted to do it, I think 20 years is a nice round figure."
While the usual ‘Apprentice’ series is not on this year, producers have created a spin-off, ‘The Apprentice Best Bits’, which will take a look back at some of the most memorable characters in the programme’s history.
And Lord Sugar enjoyed rolling back the years to look at some of the show’s classic characters, such as Paul Torrisi – who reached the final four in the first series – and series two runner-up Ruth Badger.
Speaking about the spin-off, Lord Sugar said: "It was a clever idea and it has been very enjoyable to recap on all those episodes over the years.
"We sat down and looked at which outstanding characters we needed to bring in.
"Paul Torrisi rolled straight off my tongue! Ruth Badger was another one. In later years, we had last year’s candidate Thomas Skinner.
"If you sit down and think about it, there have been some great characters.
"You do warm to people even though they possibly don’t have a chance of winning the process.
"It’s all part and parcel of the deal."
The first episode of ‘The Apprentice Best Bits’ is to air on Thursday 1st October at 9pm on BBC One.