EXCLUSIVE: Fired The Apprentice star Brett Butler-Smythe defends 'powerful' Charleine Wain
EMOTIONS ran incredibly high in the boardroom on The Apprentice tonight, with Charleine Wain reduced to tears and a bleary-eyed Brett Butler-Smythe being fired by Lord Alan Sugar.
Brett Butler-Smythe was eliminated from The Apprentice tonight
The tycoon made a point of calling the 28-year-old "honourable" as he left, with Charleine seemingly escaping the axe after Karren Brady warned Lord Sugar that "she never gives up".
Speaking to Express.co.uk, Brett praised the divisive Welsh hopeful, saying he expects her to soar in next week's interviews episode.
"She's a very strong and powerful woman," he said. "Although she gets very tongue-tied sometimes, I think she's got a passion for her own business so I think she'll be fine."
Charleine and Brett were both Project Managers this week but, in an unprecedented turn, both ended up on Lord Sugar's hit list when neither group won.
Charleine Wain 'fell apart' in the kitchen
She's had her ups and downs in the process
Although she gets very tongue-tied sometimes, I think she's got a passion for her own business so I think she'll be fine
"It could have gone any way, depending on how it was observed by Claude [Littner] and Karren and the feedback they gave to Lord Sugar," Brett reflected.
"Unfortunately this time around, there was more bad, there wasn't anything good to reflect on. Both teams lost. It became, sort of, 'what is Lord Sugar looking for personally'? Unfortunately that wasn't me this time around."
Part of his undoing seemed to be his refusal to hold Richard Wood to account in the boardroom, instead heaping praise on his performance in the task.
He said: "If I'd said that I thought Richard had been very good throughout the whole task and then turned around and changed my mind, he could have said 'well, you can't be that honourable because I've put a little bit of pressure on you and you've gone against everything you stood for just because I asked you to'.
"Richard was on point all the time. He was annoyingly good. It's been said by many other candidates that he is annoyingly brilliant, just for the sheer fact that yes, he is very, 'we're gonna win, we're gonna win', but he does get victory."
The candidates had a universally terrible week
Selina Waterman-Smith leaves The Apprentice
Candidates like Selina Waterman-Smith have lambasted the show's editing, but this isn't something Brett agrees with.
"Overall, I'm 99% happy," he said. "There's only 1% of me that was always quite conscious that people saw me as very direct, very structured… You didn't really get to see the comical side of me."
The Apprentice continues next Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.