Mona humiliated to go before Ben

Mona Lewis has said she feels humiliated to have been fired before Ben Clarke.

The 28-year-old said she could hold her head up high after being given the boot from The Apprentice, if it wasn't for the 22-year-old stockbroker still being in the competition.

"The only thing I felt humiliated (about) was I got fired before Ben - I hope he doesn't last too long," she said.

Mona lost out on the hope of being Sir Alan Sugar's Apprentice after being called into the boardroom with James McQuillan and project manager Debra Barr.

Asked if she was intimidated by straight-talking Debra, Mona said: "Intimidated is quite harsh, because that would make me a wuss really. No, so I was not intimidated.

"I was just shocked because I thought I was quite a big character, and then when you get into the house you get to meet the other candidates and you think 'oh my god'.

"Most of the time I was just gobsmacked. But yeah there are some quite fiery candidates in there, really really strong people."

But Mona firmly laid the blame for losing the task on Debra.

Asked what went wrong with their task, which involved the teams creating a concept to rebrand the seaside town of Margate, Mona said: "It was the leaflets, the poster, Debra not listening.

"Howard even said to her try and reduce the words, but she just bombarded it with so much information.

"And then not completing it and lying, blatantly lying, saying that that was left for businesses to advertise.

"You don't put lying and business together, you don't and that's really unprofessional."

But Mona refrained from targeting James too, despite him criticising her in the boardroom.

She said: "I don't think he's in there just because he's funny. He's got abilities. He's a team player. There's no hidden agenda with James so you can trust him."

James had told Sir Alan that Mona was sometimes 'inappropriate' when she carried out her market research with gay people in Margate.

At one point Mona entered a gay bar and spoke to a man awaiting a sex change.

Talking about the incident, she said: "There is a scene where I was surprised... he was telling me about the transition period that he's got in his life.

"That was quite shocking for me, not shocking in a bad way.

"There's one thing hearing about something and there's one thing actually seeing it... but he was absolutely lovely."

The senior business manager was also adamant that her idea to market the area to families was a better idea than targetting the gay community.

She said: "We wouldn't (have been) excluding anybody.

"You can still be gay and be part of the family... we were going to make sure that we maximised the market. The idea of re-branding is to try and encourage investors into Margate and they've got a really high family heritage there."

Now out of the game, Mona is backing Yasmina Siadatan to win.

She said: "We're very similar but she's just got that extra oomph that I didn't have."

And though she concluded she would have had to turn down the top job, Mona said she was proud of getting as far as she did.

"All in all I'm not disappointed at all. It was a great achievement for me.

"I've only been here four and-a-half years and getting selected out of 30,000 people, just with an A Level, is brilliant really," she said.