APPRENTICE BOSS ON I like to be humorous but BBC made me look an ogre

HE is famous for his explosive rants in the boardoom and booting contestants off his show with the words: “You’re fired.”

But Alan Sugar today reveals how he once threatened to quit the The Apprentice unless BBC bosses stopped making him look like a monster.

The businessman gave corporation top brass the ultimatum because it meant his funny side never came across and it made people nervous around him.

Unsurprisingly, Lord Sugar got his way and is now allowed to help edit the show.

“I’ve always liked to be a bit humorous,” he says. “But unfortunately previous editors of The Apprentice, under the BBC’S instructions, have been advised to make me look like a bloody ogre or whatever.

“Part and parcel of the agreement for me to continue doing the programme is for me to say that I am not going to be shown as that anymore.

“People get nervous because of this perceived stance of mine that they see on television. But for most people when we’re together in real life, it’s very straightforward, very business-like, and there’s no reason for affecting me going forward with any business ventures that I’m involved in. In fact, it enhances them.” As well as judging contestants, with his advisers Karren Brady and Claude Littner, Lord Sugar runs 23 businesses. He has come a long way since leaving school at 16 and selling car aerials out of a van. In 1968 he started the company Amstrad, which initially involved buying and selling electrical goods. At its peak, it achieved a stock market value of £1.2billion. In 2007 Lord Sugar sold his remaining interest in the company, his largest business venture, but continued working on other projects. Now, he makes the bulk of his money from his London property empire. The former chairman of Tottenham