The Apprentice has just found its latest winner, but 12 celebrities will soon be put through their paces by Lord Sugar on the show’s first full-series celebrity version.
The Celebrity Apprentice first aired on the BBC as a two-part special for Christmas 2025. The show saw personalities including AJ Odudu, Judge Rinder and Angela Scanlon taking part, and was won by JLS star JB Gill and his teammates, with the winning money going to Children in Need.
It was later announced that The Celebrity Apprentice would return for a full-length series in 2026, with filming currently underway on the show. The line-up, which was announced on Sunday (19 April), features a stacked cast of news anchors, singers, reality stars and social media favourites.
Over six episodes, the cast will compete in tasks set by Lord Sugar, with the winner receiving a £100,000 donation for their chosen charity.
Lord Sugar said: “We’ve not done anything like this before, and it’ll be entertaining to see these 12 celebrities being put through six weeks of some brilliant business challenges. But just because they’re celebrities, it doesn’t mean they’re going to get an easy ride, especially when there’s £100,000 at stake for their chosen charity.”
While a release date is still to be confirmed for The Celebrity Apprentice season 2, you can meet the cast below…
Richie Anderson
Originally known to Radio 2 listeners as the voice of the travel reports, Anderson has branched out in recent years to become a media personality in his own right. The presenter, 38, competed on Strictly Come Dancing in 2022, dancing with Giovanni Pernice in the dancer’s penultimate series before his controversial exit from the show. Since then, he’s been part of the BBC’s Eurovision team.
Announcing his candidacy, he wrote on Instagram: “Lord Sugar will see you now [grimace emoji]. Excited to be taking part in the first ever full length series of The Celebrity Apprentice with these smashers. Let’s get down to business.”
Max Balegde
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Your mum might not have heard of Max Balegde, but any young people in your life definitely will have. The 27-year-creator started posting on TikTok in early 2020, and since then Balegde’s career has snowballed, amassing 3.7 million followers and more than 400 million likes on the platform. Balegde – whose name is a reference to a viral clip of Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson attempting to do a Jamaican accent – has turned this into a fully fledged presenting career, and has interviewed stars including Zendaya, Andrew Scott and Millie Bobby Brown both at press junkets and on red carpets. He also competed on the Australian version of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2025.
Naturally, Balegde shared the announcement with a video of him and his fellow contestants clinking glasses over dinner with unimpressed snarls on their face. “Lord Sugar ain’t ready for us,” the video reads, with Balegde writing in the caption: “Can’t wait to see how this turns out…” In a second post, he wrote that he was “ready to (professionally) mog my way to the top” on the show.
Jordan Banjo
Finding fame in 2007 as a founding member of Britain’s Got Talent-winning dance troupe Diversity, Banjo has gone on to have an extensive presenting career. He’s hosted shows including The Greatest Dancer, and spent five years hosting the breakfast show on Kiss Radio with fellow Diversity dancer Perry Kiely until this January. He’s also recently branched out into boxing, and competed in the ring just last month.
As the Celebrity Apprentice cast was announced, Banjo, 33, joked that he had been “having night terrors hearing ‘YOU’RE FIRED’” since filming had begun. Zooming in on his face in the promo image, Banjo joked: “The face is smiling but the eyes are saying ’I have the same business ability as an avocado.’”
Alexandra Burke
Alexandra Burke is no stranger to reality TV success, having won The X Factor in 2008 and reached the final on Strictly in 2017. She’s also a four-time chart topper, and has used her performing background to become an established musical theatre star. Burke, 37, has appeared in West End revivals of Chess and Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and stage adaptations of The Bodyguard.
Kay Burley
A revered broadcaster and journalist, Kay Burley is best known for her work at Sky News, having appeared on the station for 36 years. In that time, she covered 12 general elections, anchoring the overnight coverage of Labour’s 2024 win just months before she left Sky News in February 2025.
Teasing a “boardroom battle” on Instagram, Burley, 65, wrote of taking part in The Celebrity Apprentice: “Well, this is going to be fun, said none of us!”
Maddie Grace Jepson
Another social media star on the Celebrity Apprentice line-up is Maddie Grace Jepson, who gained her own following on social media during lockdown. She has 1.9 million followers and 170 million likes on TikTok, and having trained at Guildhall School of Acting, has used her success online to move into musical theatre. The 26-year-old has performed in her own one-woman show, and recently finished a stint starring in Back to the Future: The Musical in the West End.
“Oh bless me. I scrub up well I reckon….. SO EXCITED to be a candidate on the first ever full series of Celeb Apprentice!” she wrote on Instagram.
Gethin Jones
Known to a generation for his years presenting Blue Peter, Welsh presenter Gethin Jones nowadays prominently features as a host on BBC Sport and Morning Live. The 48-year-old is serving in an ambassadorial role as Wales’s Chef de Mission at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer.
Toni Laites
Toni Laites became a public figure just last summer when she won the 12th series of Love Island with then-boyfriend Cach Mercer. The first American bombshell (and winner) on the UK series, Laites, 25, worked at a pool bar in Las Vegas before moving to the UK post-Love Island. While she and Mercer split earlier this year, she has remained in the UK, her visa having been approved in the October.
Sheli McCoy
Sheli McCoy is a Scottish athlete and weightlifter, best known to the public as Sabre on the BBC reboot of Gladiators. She has previously set three Scottish records in Olympic weightlifting at the national championships, and can deadlift 160kg. In addition to appearing on Gladiators, McCoy co-owns her own fitness facility in Dundee.
Reacting publicly to the Celebrity Apprentice cast announcement, McCoy, 37, wrote: “Business as (un)usual. I’m so appreciative of the opportunity to showcase what my business mind can do after previously only stepping into the limelight showcasing what my physical body is capable of. Strength and resilience – but of a different kind.”
Danny Miller
Danny Miller is a British soap star. While he started out aged 16 in Grange Hill, Miller is best known for his award-winning portrayal of Aaron Livesy on Emmerdale, a character he has played on and off since 2008. Miller, 35, won I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2021, during one of the series filmed in Gwrych Castle in Wales rather than Australia due to the pandemic.
As the Celebrity Apprentice cast list was shared publicly, Miller posted the cast picture to Instagram. “It’s nothing personal.. it’s just business [eyes emoji],” he captioned the post.
Laura Smyth
If any of the contestants will be able to handle some juvenile antics from their fellow contestants, it’s Laura Smyth, who worked as an English teacher before becoming a full-time comedian in 2021. As a stand-up Smyth, 44, won the Funny Women in 2019, just five months into doing comedy. She’s also a woman who can handle a lot, having appeared on Live at the Apollo that same year, just two weeks after concluding treatment for stage three breast cancer.
“Well look what we have here. What a lovely bunch of business people,” she wrote on Instagram as she shared her Celebrity Apprentice news earning praise from Jedward, who commented that they “can’t wait to see [her] rock it”.
DJ Spoony
A legend of the British radio scene, DJ Spoony – AKA Johnathan St John Joseph – got his start in DJing in the 1990s. Then a member of the garage trio Dreem Teem, he was instrumental in bringing the genre to BBC Radio 1 in 2000, and has worked the BBC since, currently presenting The Good Groove on Radio 2. Spoony, 55, received a British Empire Medal in the 2023 New Year Honours.
Excitedly commenting on his casting, Spoony wrote on social media: “As a fan of the show, with great pleasure….The Apprentice. So happy to be a part of this, spent hours watching it down the years. Who is ready? Cant wait to get stuck in… got a great team too. You’re….”
