When The Apprentice star Baroness Karren Brady was forced to intervene on show - exclusive

The Apprentice season 18 has arrived, and sees a host of new candidates hope to impress Lord Alan Sugar with their skills in order to receive a £250,000 cash injection into their business, as well as mentorship from the business magnate.

However, it is almost as important for the candidates to secure the approval of Baroness Karren Brady and Tim Campbell, who act as advisors on the show and follow the teams throughout their tasks, making notes to report back to Lord Sugar. Although their roles are similar to documentary-filmmakers - to only watch and report, and never intervene, Karren revealed that sometimes they have no choice but to become involved.

Chatting to HELLO!, Karren explained: "There have been times where you’re forced to step in. If they’re making a food product, they have to fill in a purchase order so they say they want one kilo of X and two kilos of W, three bottles of Z, whatever they want, and they put their total in and let's say, their total is 200 and it should be 700, they believe they've only spent 200 and you have to say to them, ‘Do you do you understand that, actually, a kilo of X doesn't cost a hundred pounds, it costs a thousand?'

"You have to step in otherwise, they don't know they're losing before they've even started."

She continued: "They do make mistakes. They rush, they miscalculate, they get things wrong and they're all just not being thorough enough and not making one person in charge. So say what your job is the numbers and then leaving that person to do the numbers, they're all chipping in, they're all shouting out prices and that’s how mistakes happen."

Laughing, the TV personality added: "It's like when they turned up to a jeans photo shoot without their jeans. It’s hard not to say, ‘Where are the jeans?!’"

The star clearly loves her role on the show, particularly as she is close friends with Alan. "Alan and I have been friends for three decades," she said fondly. "I do the show because of him and I enjoy doing it and neither of us really see it like work.

"I like it because I like spending time with him and of course Tim. He does it because when he started, nobody helped him. No one gave him any money. No one mentored him. So he has an opportunity to really help the next generation invest in people to have their dream of starting their own business… It's so wonderful to be part of something that changes people’s lives for the better. Just a real privilege to be involved."

The Apprentice is on BBC One and iPlayer on 30 January at 9pm