Fired from The Apprentice: 'I'm feeling a little bit sorry for myself but I'm glad I did it'
Alan Sugar failed to bite on Conor Gilsenan's electric toothbrush idea. The toothbrush was described as looking like 'a turd' on the show
Alan Sugar said the 'immortal words': "I'm gonna conclude that Conor, you're fired". And with that Mullingar native, Conor Gilsenan, became the second to be sent home from the latest series of the cutthroat business reality TV show.
The Irish rugby player who declared himself hard-working and 'hyper-motivated by money' wasn't bitter about the early finish — though he still reckons he should have been kept on for longer.
He chatted to Jennifer Zamparelli on her 2FM show. And she's more than qualified to console him that things will work out despite the Alan Sugar rejection. She said: "Welome to the club. I was fired all those years ago, it's gonna be ok let me tell ya."
Zamparelli herself appeared on the fourth series of the show back in 2008 — "I got to week 12".
They laughed about having their own 'reality TV rejects club' and Jennifer asked him if he would have done anything differently "besides getting fired".
This year's teams were tasked with coming up with and marketing a gender-neutral electric toothbrush for children. It seems that going off-mission and working on a gender-specific prototype didn't appeal to Alan Sugar.
The show is filmed in advance so Conor was able to watch himself last night. There have been concerns from fans in the past that some reality TV shows are heavily edited to portray some contestants as silly or as villains.
Jennifer noted how scary the show can be for contestants: "People do not understand what they put you through."
And Conor was only on the show for a very short time so he "didn't even manage to grab everyone's name" so he wasn't up for making strong predictions about who might win. But he said that some of the women who have their own businesses were very impressive, singling out Kathryn Louise Burn who owns an online pyjama store and Amy Anzel, a beauty brand owner.
Conor had established a mobile bar called the 301 with an ex-teammate of his, Topsy Ojo, and is hoping to expand this. And he got engaged over Christmas to Dubliner Megan Scanlan who has been "incredibly supportive".
He admits to "feeling quite sorry for myself for a couple of weeks" after the show was filmed but says he has started a new job as well in tech sales.
Conor, who was only nine months out of professional rugby when he took part in the show, reckons that despite being very anxious about it in advance, it was "a fair reflection of everyone". And he said he's happy he can kick back and watch the rest of the show play out now.
- The Apprentice airs on BBC One on Thursday evening.
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