Celebrity Apprentice's new advisor Nick Bell teases 'serious drama'

Australian entrepreneur Nick Bell is Lord Sugar's newest advisor in the upcoming season of Celebrity Apprentice, where he will work alongside Boost Juice founder Janine Allis in the boardroom and in challenges.

Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle ahead of the show's premiere, Nick teased that there would be "serious drama".

"I said to a few of my friends if you want drama – I'm talking very, very serious drama – laughter and tears, then this show has it all," Nick told us. "Like, there were literally at times, almost fights breaking out! It got hairy at one stage!"

He continued: "The narrative is not controlled, I thought going in there it would be contrived, I was completely wrong. The producers just let it roll and let people do their thing, it's an interesting watch!"

Nick shared that he'd always been a fan of The Apprentice and Lord Sugar, and when he was approached to come on board as an advisor this year he happily said yes.

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"I've always looked up to Lord Sugar and what he's achieved over the years, I thought, 'What a chance to learn from someone who's kind of made it – the guy's a multibillionaire – so I can learn a lot from him," he said. "Plus, to work with Janine Allis, was also a good experience, she's awesome. I love that woman."

Speaking about his first meeting with Lord Sugar, Nick joked that he was just praying that he was a "nice guy".

He joked: "I was like, 'Please don't be a wanker, please be a nice guy, please be a nice guy!' And the thing about Lord Sugar is, what you see is what you get. He's very direct, but I actually love that because you know where you stand."

'Didn't know what to expect'

Nick shared that he received the invite to be on the show, the same way many people receive job opportunities – through LinkedIn!

"To be honest with you, I didn't know what to expect going into the show," he said, explaining he received the message on LinkedIn and after realising it wasn't a prank thought it was a great way to escape lockdown in Melbourne at the time.

"I thought, why not go to Sydney for three months and film the show, but I had no idea around who the celebrities were, what was going to be involved. And the first day on set – these are pretty random celebrities: sports stars, Olympians, reality TV stars, TV hosts – and they're all different and brilliant in their own way, but you've got some massive personalities!"

And while he didn't have any favourites, Nick was quick to share he had serious respect for Olympic swimmer Bronte Campbell, "To get to that level, you must have serious determination, grit and absolute stamina in life, so I was a massive fan of hers going in."

He added, "To me, business is business, I don't care if you're an Olympian or a sports star, if you're not going to be good at this, then I'm going to say, 'Oi, you're doing a s**t job, this is what you should be doing,' or you let them self-implode, and that's what happened, a lot of the celebrities self-imploded."

The sneakiest and most surprising Celebrity Apprentice stars

When asked which celebrity surprised Nick the most throughout their time on the show, he said, "Carla from Bankstown, she was a surprise packet. She's very good at talking, very warm to people and I didn't think she was going to perform very well throughout the process, from the initial conversation and she did a great job!"

When it came to the sneakiest celebrity, Nick didn't hold back, "There's a few sneaky people on set, I'll be honest with you, there were some dirty tactics happening throughout the time of filming. Ones to watch would be definitely Darren [McMullen], Vince [Colosimo] was a character and also watch Gamble [Breaux] and Turia [Pitt], they were also good value."

Speaking of Gamble specifically, he hinted that her conversations with Lord Sugar are very "interesting".

"I won't give too much away... but it was interesting. When she was talking to Lord Sugar, I just shut my mouth and just watched what was happening. It was a bit of a show, all I needed was some popcorn and it would have been perfect!"

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