The Apprentice's Lord Alan Sugar hints he’d hire a man with tattoos but not a woman

The business mogul is not keen on a heavily-inked woman fronting his companies 
Awkward: Lord Alan Sugar gives his views on tattoos in the work place
Ken McKay/ITV/Rex
Jennifer Ruby30 September 2016
The Weekender

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Alan Sugar has angered viewers by saying that he’d hire a man with tattoos but possibly not a woman.

The Apprentice star, who has certainly hired and fired a few people in his time, said that he wouldn’t be too keen on having a heavily-inked ‘lady’ fronting one of his companies.

Speaking on The One Show, he said: “Men obviously who come to work they’ve got suits on. They’re covered up. Ladies, I dunno.”

Clearly trying to pick his words carefully, he continued: “First of all, one has to be awfully careful when saying why you would and would not employ someone.

“But the fact is, is that, if someone came into my office as the receptionist of one of my tower blocks, to be sitting in the reception in a marble, beautiful marble place and her whole face is tattooed from top to bottom – you can imagine…

“I would be thinking of one of your little punch lines, 'What are you thinking?' I would have to tell them 'Yes, could you come back next week and we will have a think about it.”

The 69-year-old has been rather vocal on a number of issues as the brand new series of The Apprentice approaches.

He recently admitted that he thought The Great British Bake Off would be a ‘disaster’ over on Channel 4.

“I think it’s going to be a total disaster,” he told the Radio Times. “Think about their personal credibility as the production company, if this thing bombs on Channel 4.”

Lord Sugar, whose reality show has been running on the BBC for 12 years, insisted that he would never leave the broadcaster.

“My loyalty is with the BBC,” he said. “The rights owner would need to run it past me, because they’d need to sound out whether I’d go with it, and then would be told no.”

The Apprentice airs at 9pm on BBC One on October 6.

The Apprentice 2016

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