EXCLUSIVE: Celebrity Apprentice's Wippa addresses ‘rigged’ rumours

Fans online may have claimed that the past few episodes of Celebrity Apprentice have been rigged to let comedian Ross Noble make it to the final, however, in an exclusive chat with Yahoo Lifestyle, recently eliminated contestant Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli reveals why he thinks Lord Sugar’s decisions have been more than fair.

Twitter users first called foul after Ross escaped elimination despite being the project manager in one task.

Ross had come up with the idea to take a serious approach to the challenge, which saw his team ending up in the boardroom.

After Lord Sugar decided to consider the contestants' achievements in the previous challenges for the very first time, fan favourite David Genat was eliminated for ‘snaky behaviour’.

“David is dodgy, yes, but the team lost the challenge purely because of Ross,” one fan tweeted. “There has never been a clearer cut case.”

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Chatting to us about the competition, Wippa says that “it would be very hard to rig it” because Lord Sugar makes the final decision on who gets fired.

“So whether you’re trying to rig it or you’re trying to strategically weave your way through and fly under the radar as they like to say in reality TV, he makes the call,” the radio host reveals.

“It would be really hard to rig it, because when he's in there, for one, the outcome is going to be the outcome. So maybe if you wanted to, you could try and structure it so you could control which team wins, sure. You could try and do that, but I don't believe that was done.

“And then second to that is, when Lord Sugar’s in there making that call based on how he sees it, that’s his call. Not even the production company can step in there and say, hey Lord Sugar, here’s what we think. He doesn't want to hear a word of that, he makes that decision. I do know that.”

'He's a clever, clever guy'

Despite the rumours, Wippa still believes that Ross deserves to win the show and take home the crown.

“Ross Noble is just one of the maddest brains I’ve ever come across and I admire the genius that is Ross Noble,” he says.

“Sometimes it's almost a game of dissecting the genius because he's a clever, clever guy on the show.

The Fitzy & Wippa radio host went on to say that it was strange watching himself on TV, and he was nervous about how he would be portrayed.

“I was funny about getting emotional on TV as well, it’s the other thing that played on my mind,” he explains. “I thought, oh god, I can’t cry on TV.”

“I spoke to dad two episodes in when we were filming and he asked, how’s it going? I said, well, episode one I cry because I had a big win for the charity, and episode two I think I’m just yelling out ‘lucky golden basket’ in a Chinese restaurant for most of the night.”

‘I had sort of branded her’

Chatting about his fellow contestants, Wippa says that Martha Kalifatidis was the celebrity that was most different to what he expected because he had stereotyped her.

“I was like, oh, one of those people from Married At First Sight. I had sort of branded her,” he admits.

“But she was super smart, great TV, very funny. She was great fun to have on the show.”

Martha sparked controversy in last night’s episode when she was accused of only participating in the series to further her career rather than raise money for her charity.

Wippa now defends the beauty influencer, saying that her hilarious outbursts on TV are what people love most about her.

“She cops a lot of hate, and that’s because she is jarring and her honesty is confronting at times,” he remarks.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that she’s a fun, great girl. She's awesome to hang around with and we've remained friends since the show.

“She calls it how she sees it, and that was part of what was also entertaining off-air. Half of the stuff she would say was just unbelievable, but funny at the same time.”

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