LORD Sugar doesn’t strike me as the sort of man you’d boss about... but one Beeb staffer found that out the hard way while filming The Apprentice.

The billionaire was told he couldn’t use his Amstrad phone during the show’s trademark boardroom scenes, in case it promoted the company he made his money from.

Now, his former sidekick — Countdown host Nick Hewer — has revealed Sir Alan didn’t take the news lying down, even delivering one of his infamous rollickings.

Nick said: “In one of the very early episodes, somebody from Compliance intervened on set and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Sir Alan, but we can’t allow an Amstrad phone on your desk in the boardroom because that would be considered promoting your product’.

“He said, ‘Right, so whose boardroom is this?’ ‘Yours, Sir Alan.’ ‘And what does my company make?’ ‘Phones, Sir Alan.’

“‘Yeah. So do you think in real life I would have a Philips phone on my desk?’”

Nick went on: “Meanwhile, Chrysler appeared to be selling the BBC six or eight brand-new people carriers every year at full whack.

“Chrysler must’ve thought it was Christmas.”

This is not the first time Nick has revealed secrets behind the hit reality series.

He previously told how producers wanted Lord Sugar to keep attractive candidates and not utter the words “You’re fired” to them.

Nick, who was an advisor on the show for ten years before leaving in 2014, said: “I’d say to him, ‘Oh, by the way Alan, the blonde, he or she is as thick as a fridge door. I urge you, with every fibre of my being, to get rid of them because they’re going to let you down’.

“And the producers will say, ‘Do you think you could find it in your heart to not get rid of the blonde just yet?’ He will say, ‘The blonde will go when the blonde deserves to go’.”

The whole show should go. It’s just Big Brother in suits.