Soap and soup mix-up leads to Rebecca Jeffery's Apprentice exit

Apprentice contestant Rebecca Jeffery has said she was relieved to become the latest candidate fired by Lord Sugar, admitting it was probably the right decision by the business mogul.

The marketing and design company owner said she felt "dreadful" after a mix up with soap and soup contributed to Team Nebula's loss and put her into the board room for the third time.

The candidates were handed the night shift by Lord Sugar as he tasked them with finding nine specific items for the cheapest prices before a 6am deadline in London.

Among the products were black African soap and a tagine dish - both of which flummoxed Nebula as they failed to find either item, resulting in a fine to their end total.

In fact Jeffery thought she had tracked both the products to a food store in Streatham after a phone call with the shop owner, but upon arrival was greeted with tahini sauce and soup rather than the desired items.

She told the Press Association: "I was gutted when we went into the shop and they didn't have a tagine... they had tahini, then they didn't have soap... they had soup. Doh.

"I felt very responsible as I had made the phone call myself and somehow these items had become mine to negotiate too. At the time it felt dreadful."

However, the 31-year-old said it was the right time for her to leave the process, describing herself as a cat whose nine lives were up.

"To be fair I had been on the losing team every week, I had been brought back into the boardroom twice and I hadn't really had any moments of excellence in the process," she said.

"It didn't feel like a horrible firing to me, I knew that I had probably used up all of my chances.

"I was like a cat with nine lives.

"At that point I had also lost heart a bit because I was missing my little boy so much, so I was a bit relieved to go home."

Asked if she should have been more clinical, Jeffery said: "I believe in being real, honest and personable and I would never want to be considered a clinical person or say clinical things."

Team Titan managed to pick up eight of the nine items, missing out on the tagine dish, and were rewarded for their all-nighter with a pampering session.

Including their fine, Nebula spent £520.55 compared to Titan's £408.11.

In the board room, Nebula project manager Trishna Thakrar opted to bring in Jeffrey and Sofiane Kehlfa to face Lord Sugar.

He questioned Kehlfa's team spirit and criticised Thakrar's lack of strategy in the task, telling her he found it "very hard not to put the total blame on you".

However, it was Jeffery who was given the boot, with Lord Sugar telling her: "I've got to think about the people going forward on this but I've also go to talk about past performance

Following the firing, she told the programme that she was given the boot because she is "not a twat".

Explaining that comment she said: "Early on in this process I started to wonder whether you had to be obnoxious to win the Apprentice.

"It's not in my nature to turn on people or blame them for things after making friends and working closely with them for weeks so I decided that I was going to stay true to my real self throughout the process and try not to be a 'twat'.

She added: "I most certainly am not calling all the other candidates twats. However, at times unexpected behaviour does occur and it's nothing like I have ever experienced in real business - thank God."

Jeffery backed either Frances Bishop, Courtney Wood or Grainne McCoy to end up as Lord Sugar's apprentice and revealed she would be pushing forward with her business plan, which is modelled upon the success of her existing company.