Gabrielle: I wish I'd pulled sicky (From Dudley News)

Gabrielle: I wish I'd pulled sicky

11:20pm Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Apprentice candidate Gabrielle Omar confessed "I wish I'd called in sick" after her shock eviction from the show, along with project manager Stephen Brady.

Salesman Stephen narrowly escaped being fired last week by telling Lord Sugar he would definitely win the next challenge if he stayed. But when their team lost by £8,000 in the task of signing up special offers for a luxury website, Gabrielle was also sent packing.

The 29-year-old architect said: "Stephen and I had a really big personality clash and we couldn't really work together.

"But on that last task we'd both had enough of arguing with each other and we hadn't had enough sleep and all the pressure that was on his head was filtering out.

"It was just a bit of a nightmare. I thought, 'I wish I'd called in sick this morning!'"

Gabrielle said she felt she had become a scapegoat in the boardroom for the rest of the candidates who saw her as a "weak link" because she was nice.

"People were always thinking, 'She's too nice, we can manipulate this one. She won't be able to defend herself.'"

Meanwhile, Stephen admitted he expected Lord Sugar's "dreaded finger to be pointed in my direction" as soon as he lost the task, and he would have done anything to escape it.

He revealed: "The guys actually had a nickname for me as Inspector Gadget and if I could hit an Inspector Gadget ejector seat I would have done it."