I went for a heart scan ...they told me I had a blocked artery, so I dealt with it
He’s the unstoppable mogul who shows his candidates no mercy. And when it comes to The Apprentice, nothing is going to slow down Alan Sugar – not even a heart op.
Speaking for the first time since his potentially life-saving procedure, the 70-year-old insists he’s not ready to quit the boardroom any time soon. In fact, he says he feels like a teenager again.
It’s not just his health that’s improving. While he slams long-time nemesis Donald Trump for his “comical” dealings with North Korea, the ex-Labour peer is beginning to soften towards Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, admitting: “He talks a good game.”
Lord Sugar’s health scare emerged at a routine check-up last autumn, when a heart scan showed he had a build-up of plaque in an artery – a cause of heart attacks and strokes.
“It was in America, I am there for four, five months of the year,” the dad of three says. “I went and had a scan and they said, ‘Your artery is blocked’.”
He needed a stent fitted as soon as possible – a mesh tube that widens the artery, fed through a small incision in the wrist or groin. The no-nonsense tycoon says: “They said, ‘You need a stent’. So I just dealt with it. I had it done in Florida. They stick a wire up your groin.”
He’s now doing more than ever. He’s a keen tennis player, cyclist and pilot, and returns to TV tonight with Karren Brady and Claude Littner on The Apprentice.
Lord Sugar says: “I’m only 70, it’s my teenage years. I’m raring to go. My wife Ann keeps telling me, ‘You’re not 18 any more’. Sometimes I realise I’m not, in certain sports, but it’s how you feel.
“You can let yourself become a couch potato at 70 and look terrible, or you can keep yourself trim and occupied.”
AMy wife keeps telling me, ‘You’re not 18 any more’, and sometimes I realise I’m not ALAN SUGAR ON KEEPING UP HIS HOBBIES SUCH AS TENNIS AND CYCLING
nd he gets unlikely inspiration from media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 86, who married 61-yearold model Jerry Hall last year. “Look at my friend Rupert,” he says. “I don’t know how old he is now but he’s on his treadmill every day. He’s fantastic.”
Of course, Lord Sugar will be needing all his energy to weed out the chancers from the entrepreneurs in the 13th series of his hit BBC One show. Some 18 hopefuls will fight for his £250,000 investment and to become his business partner.
They include Elizabeth McKenna, 39, who calls herself “Scary Liz” and says she has “size-10 feet that kick butt”, and Andrew Brady, 26, who claims to be a mix of “Clark Kent and Gok Wan”.
Lord Sugar says: “There’s certainly a personality type required in an entrepreneur. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be loud and screaming and shouting. There’s a certain shrewdness about people, sometimes you can detect it in the way they pick up things quickly.”
And though he has seen it all over the years, he’s not bored yet. “I really enjoy The Apprentice, I really do,” he grins. “I’ve had lots of offers to do other TV programmes. I’m not interested at all.”
His former rival on the US version of The Apprentice has moved on, however. There was no love lost between the two tycoons before Trump became US President. What does Lord Sugar make of the leader’s management skills?
“He’s gone through quite a few people,” he says. “He has a very simple process: if you don’t agree with me, you’re out.”
Lord Sugar claims Trump had already been axed from The Apprentice before announcing his bid for the White House.
He says: “Apparently NBC had fired him anyway, but it got mixed up in a bit of smoke and mirrors somewhere.” Trump has always maintained he had to
quit the show to run. NBCUniversal only said they were severing ties after Trump made comments about immigration early on in his campaign. They have not commented on Lord Sugar’s claims.
The billionaire adds of Trump’s dealings with North Korea’s despot: “At the moment, his communication skills with Kim Jong-un are quite comical really. They should make a show of it.”
Yet the Hackney-born tycoon is beginning to look (slightly) more favourably on certain politicians back home. The son of an East End tailor, he grew up in a council flat and worked in a greengrocers while at school. He left school at 16 and started selling car radio aerials.
By 21 he had founded electronics firm Amstrad, which was first listed on the stock exchange in 1980, before becoming chairman at Spurs. Several ventures later, Lord Sugar is worth £1.15billion and is the epitome of a self-made man. So it was a shock to many when he quit Labour in 2015 and openly criticised Mr Corbyn.
But Lord Sugar has started to see some redeeming features in him, and says: “He has a good chance in the next general election.”
He goes on: “He’s dressed himself up a little bit. He’s got rid of that old jacket and torn trousers he had in the beginning to show he was one of these hippies.
“And he’s talking a good game at the moment, getting the electorate going.”
Though he says: “I’m very happy being an independent in the House of Lords on the crossbench.”
Lord Sugar also repeats his call for Tories Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to face charges for saying the UK would have an extra £350million a week for the NHS after Brexit. He says: “When we left the EU it was because of [Johnson] and his sidekick Gove. Blatant lies, the guy should be in prison. You can’t see it now but you will, in five years, I promise you. “They should imprison him and Gove for lying.” Another controversy he’s is not so sweet on is the BBC gender pay gap.
Lord Sugar has hired five women via his TV show. He says: “I’m a great believer in women. They’re very focused, not looking for any continual pat on the back. There is no testosterone race or anything like that.”
But he adds: “In the BBC it is a different situation. Gary Lineker, he gets paid one-point-whatever million, but he’s good and he’s needed in the programme. It’s what the public wants to see, so you have to pay him.”
The Apprentice, tonight at 9pm, BBC1.
He’s got rid of that old jacket and trousers he had in the beginning LORD SUGAR WARMING TO JEREMY CORBYN