Exclusive:
Motivational speaker Frederick Afrifa and telemarketing company owner Keir Shave were the latest casualties of The Apprentice after failing to deliver in this weeks banking app task
It was a double brutal firing on The Apprentice this week as one team’s banking app delivered chump change – but the two unlucky candidates certainly don’t think they should have been kicked out of the competition.
Motivational speaker and team project manager Frederick Afrifa was brutally fired just seconds after choosing his two teammates to join him back in the boardroom, with co-star Keir Shave following closely behind.
“It was crazy,” Frederick tells the Mirror of his very swift firing. “I don’t think I’ve seen [a firing so quickly] before ever so made some history there, which is pretty cool, I guess. The only thing I think about is that there might have been a Spurs game that night, and Lord Sugar was trying to get there in a rush!”
He adds: “It would have been nice to get a bit more time to explain because Alan Sugar isn’t there on task, so he doesn’t know what happens. So having a bit more time, maybe he would have actually understood that it was more so that the product wasn’t fit for purpose, rather than the pitch. But yeah, I was gone before I knew it.”
Each of the teams were tasked with creating a child-friendly banking app suitable for 6-9 year olds which would be able to teach them financial literacy. Frederick’s team opted for a friendly dog – but while building the game-like app, sub-team leader Dean ignored his teammates and insisted that they didn’t need any financial facts or learning blocks in the game.
Frederick insists that he “absolutely does not” believe that he should have been on the chopping block. “Judging by how the rest of the episode went, I think we know why I got fired earlier. I just didn’t pick the person that he wanted to fire, in my opinion, because otherwise we would have just gone to the bottom three, and then we would have just discussed and that would have been the end of it. But I think Lord Sugar already had in mind that maybe was to get rid of someone else.”
Jumping in, Keir says: “And I blame myself for Fred’s firing, if I’m honest.” Asked whether there was anything viewers didn’t see in the episode, he says: “So, Fred picked two people, then suddenly the smoke turned on me. Lord Sugar said, after hearing all that, said ‘Fred, do you want to pick him?’, referring to me. He said, ‘No, he didn’t do a bad pitch.’ And then Fred got fired.
“So yeah, the part where he refers to me as him wasn’t shown. And I think that that after watching the episode on you’re fired, might make a bit more sense to people watching. Because I’m hoping, touch wood, that people are a bit like, well, how’s Keir just suddenly got smoked for no reason?”
Fred admits that he definitely felt the pressure of filming for TV, fearing that his credibility could be “obliterated”. “I certainly didn’t forget the cameras were there because having watched the show, I knew that I was going in there as a keynote speaker. So if I do a pitch and I make a mistake, I stumble on a word, they’re going to me that look terrible and it could absolutely obliterate my credibility as a speaker.
“So I felt a lot of pressure personally anytime I was pitching or negotiating. But I teach people how to speak and communicate well under pressure, which is about practicing what I preached.”
Do they have any messages for Lord Sugar months on from appearing on the show? “Keep watching,” Keir says. “You’ll be wanting to invest in the future.” Frederick adds: “I would just wish him the best, really. And yeah, just thank him for the opportunities.”
The Apprentice airs Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One
Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .