Welsh TV star to appear in the first ever Celebrity Apprentice series

A Welsh TV star who is a fixture on our television screens will be one of the contestants taking part in the very first Celebrity Apprentice series.

The first ever full-length incarnation of The Celebrity Apprentice is coming to BBC iPlayer and BBC One, with 12 well-known names taking on Lord Sugar’s ultimate business challenge.

The celebrities taking part are; singer and songwriter Alexandra Burke, actor Danny Miller, presenter Gethin Jones, dancer and presenter Jordan Banjo, journalist Kay Burley, actress and online personality Maddie Grace Jepson, presenter, podcaster and content creator Max Balegde, Gladiator Sheli McCoy, UK garage legend DJ Spoony, TV and BBC Radio 2 presenter Richie Anderson, comedian, writer and actor Laura Smyth and television personality Toni Laites.

Across the six-part series, the celebrities will face a range of weekly business challenges set by Lord Sugar. Competing for the chance to win a £100,000 donation to a charity of their choice, they will each be hoping to prove their business acumen and ultimately be crowned The Celebrity Apprentice winner.

For this star-studded series, the boardroom will relocate to a London City skyscraper, providing a distinctive new setting for Lord Sugar’s final deliberations.

Bringing together entertainment, competition and high-stakes decision-making, the new series marks a major addition to The Apprentice franchise.

Lord Sugar says: “We’ve not done anything like this before, and it’ll be entertaining to see these 12 celebrities being put through six weeks of some brilliant business challenges. But just because they’re celebrities, it doesn’t mean they’re going to get an easy ride, especially when there’s £100,000 at stake for their chosen charity.”

Paul Broadbent, Director of Programmes at Naked adds: “We’ve a brilliant cast of familiar faces entering our brand-new boardroom, and with a full six-episode series, viewers will get many opportunities to see the celebrities as they’ve never before, battling to show off their business acumen for a massive charity prize.”

Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment Commissioning at the BBC says: “This brand-new full-length series of The Celebrity Apprentice takes everything audiences love about the format and turns the pressure right up. This year’s celebrities arrive with strong reputations – but in the boardroom, status counts for nothing. They’ll be tested on leadership, teamwork and commercial instinct, and only those who can truly deliver will make it through. It’s bold, unpredictable and hugely entertaining – and viewers are in for a brilliant ride.”

Broadcast details for The Celebrity Apprentice will be confirmed in due course.

The Celebrity Apprentice (6 x 60’) has been commissioned by Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment at the BBC. The series is a co-production with Naked (a Fremantle label) and MGM Alternative UK for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Paul Broadbent, Amy Boyle and Emma Peach are the Executive Producers; Francesca Maudslay is Consultant Executive Producer and Rachael Hankinson is Production Executive. For MGM Alternative, Dom Bird is Executive Producer; Jo Wallace is the Commissioning Editor for the BBC. It is produced and distributed pursuant to a licence from Amazon MGM Studios Distribution.