Karishma Vijay, the newly crowned winner of The Apprentice, has expressed profound gratitude for her participation, crediting the BBC business show with transforming her life.
The 28-year-old beauty entrepreneur triumphed in an all-female final on Thursday, securing Lord Sugar’s coveted investment after a competitive showdown against fellow finalist Pascha Myhill.
Her victory follows another significant personal milestone, as Ms Vijay recently announced her engagement on social media, sharing photographs with her fiancé.
Reacting to her win, Vijay said: “I actually can’t believe my life right now. Things keep happening. I’m just having a really good week.
“I think people are happy to see me happy. A couple of years ago, I was single, I called off a wedding, ran away from it all – very dramatic, Bollywood movie-esque.
“Now, I’m here with my happy ending and also a lot of money in the bank account.”
The final saw Vijay, from Ashford, Surrey, and Myhill, from Reading, Berkshire, go head to head in a task to develop a brand and advertising campaign for their respective business ideas.
Neither finalist had to face the final task alone, as a number of previously-fired candidates returned to help them.
They then presented their businesses to Lord Sugar and a room of leading industry experts, as well as familiar faces from the show’s past 20 years including Margaret Mountford, Nick Hewer, Ricky Martin and Dean Franklin.
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After two strong business pitches, it all came down to the final boardroom where Vijay and Myhill both made their case directly to Lord Sugar as to why they should be his next business partner.
Vijay recounted the moment Lord Sugar told her she had won and would be receiving his £250,000 investment, and said: “I was so blown away, so shocked – but I kept it very cool.
“Then, I got in my car and I was screaming. It was just insane – I can’t believe I’ve gone and done it after not having watched the show, I feel like that’s so cheeky.”
She said once the final is filmed, the contestants have “no idea who has won” and must wait up to six months to find out the results.
Vijay told PA: “Having all that waiting time, it was a lot of anxiety.
“I’m just happy with the outcome. I’m so over the moon. And I’m just so happy to have all these opportunities now, it’s insane. My life has just really turned around.”
Vijay continued: “The last three or four years, my life has been nothing short of a s*** storm. Everything that you can imagine going wrong went wrong, and it was like, ‘How am I surviving this?’
“I felt incredibly unlucky. Then I found this show. I’m just so eternally grateful for all of it.
“Had I not hit rock bottom, it would have never been this unreal. I wouldn’t have probably been this grateful if it had come easily to me.”
Vijay will use Lord Sugar’s investment to expand her beauty business Kishkin, and said: “It’s going to be a brand that really made it, with young girls queuing up to buy it.”
She added: “My mum and dad are the proudest people on Earth right now.
“They cannot stop speaking about me to everyone they meet, and their friends – who probably overlooked us at some point.
“My dad raised me as a single dad – both me and my sister.”
Referring to her Indian background and her “very traditional” family life, she said: “Being from the kind of community I’m from, they told my dad, ‘There’s no way you’re going to be able to raise these two girls as a man, as a single parent’.
“My older sister is a doctor, and I’m the winner of The Apprentice. What more can a dad ask for?”
Vijay praised fellow finalist Myhill, saying: “I have so much love for Pascha. I think she’s incredibly inspiring and the most deserving.
“A lot of people were questioning her place in the final and I just won’t have it.
“She deserves a seat at that table, 100 per cent.”
