The Apprentice Final 2013: 'I'm not always right,' admits Luisa

Cake shop boss says the programme had helped to tame her

Luisa Zissman in the interview room on the Apprentice (BBC)

Finalist Luisa Zissman says her stint on The Apprentice has taught her to bite her tongue and realise she is not always right.

The outspoken contestant pointed out that being her own boss meant she did not answer to anyone and was used to getting her own way.

But the cake shop boss, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, said the programme had helped to tame her.

Zissman, who has posed naked in the past for a charity calendar, said: “For me the hardest thing was working with people and being managed by other people because obviously I work for myself, I don't answer to anyone.

“So it was really, really tough going into that environment. It was like 'Why are you telling me what to do?' I struggled with that.”

She admitted it was tough having what were seen as personality flaws put under the microscope in the interview round of the contest.

“I'm human just like everybody else, nobody likes to be criticised, nobody likes to have their faults pointed out.

“I had started to keep my mouth shut and think 'You know what, just go with it sometimes. You are not always right Luisa.”'

The entrepreneur Zissman also cleared up any suggestions of bitchiness towards other candidates.

She said: “Whenever women argue people will say they're bitchy. If men disagree it will be confrontational but if women do it it tends to be portrayed as quite catty and actually it's not, you know what it's a couple of girls having a disagreement.

“We're not suddenly all bitches because of it. It's just a stereotypical thing which I find personally quite irritating to be honest with you.”

Zissman said she has been unaffected by negative press throughout the series: “I was probably the best person to have that because I'm one of the toughest in there so I just don't care. I'm so thick-skinned it's like water off a duck's back.”

PA