{"id":535617,"date":"2026-04-17T08:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535617\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T08:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:11:14","slug":"the-apprentice-2026-winner-revealed-karishma-vijay-opens-up-on-rollercoaster-journey-to-lord-sugars-investment-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535617\/","title":{"rendered":"The Apprentice 2026 winner revealed: Karishma Vijay opens up on rollercoaster journey to Lord Sugar\u2019s investment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Karishma Vijay, the newly crowned winner of The Apprentice<\/a>, has expressed profound gratitude for her participation, crediting the BBC<\/a> business show with transforming her life.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old beauty entrepreneur triumphed in an all-female final on Thursday, securing Lord Sugar<\/a>\u2019s coveted investment after a competitive showdown against fellow finalist Pascha Myhill. <\/p>\n

Her victory follows another significant personal milestone, as Ms Vijay recently announced her engagement on social media, sharing photographs with her fianc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Reacting to her win, Vijay said: \u201cI actually can\u2019t believe my life right now. Things keep happening. I\u2019m just having a really good week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u2013 very dramatic, Bollywood movie-esque.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I\u2019m here with my happy ending and also a lot of money in the bank account.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Neither finalist had to face the final task alone, as a number of previously-fired candidates returned to help them.<\/p>\n

They then presented their businesses to Lord Sugar and a room of leading industry experts, as well as familiar faces from the show\u2019s past 20 years including Margaret Mountford, Nick Hewer, Ricky Martin and Dean Franklin.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Vijay recounted the moment Lord Sugar told her she had won and would be receiving his \u00a3250,000 investment, and said: \u201cI was so blown away, so shocked \u2013 but I kept it very cool.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, I got in my car and I was screaming. It was just insane \u2013 I can\u2019t believe I\u2019ve gone and done it after not having watched the show, I feel like that\u2019s so cheeky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ViewersViewers saw Karishma Vijay crowned the winner of the BBC business show on Thursday after an all-female final, which saw her battle it out for Lord Sugar’s coveted investment against Pascha Myhill (BBC\/Naked (A Freemantle Label)\/Matt Frost\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

She said once the final is filmed, the contestants have \u201cno idea who has won\u201d and must wait up to six months to find out the results.<\/p>\n

Vijay told PA: \u201cHaving all that waiting time, it was a lot of anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just happy with the outcome. I\u2019m so over the moon. And I\u2019m just so happy to have all these opportunities now, it\u2019s insane. My life has just really turned around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vijay continued: \u201cThe 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, \u2018How am I surviving this?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt incredibly unlucky. Then I found this show. I\u2019m just so eternally grateful for all of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad I not hit rock bottom, it would have never been this unreal. I wouldn\u2019t have probably been this grateful if it had come easily to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vijay will use Lord Sugar\u2019s investment to expand her beauty business Kishkin<\/a>, and said: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a brand that really made it, with young girls queuing up to buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KarishmaKarishma Vijay (left) and Pascha Myhill (right) battled each other for Lord Sugar\u2019s investment on The Apprentice (BBC\/Naked (A Freemantle Label)\/Matt Frost\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cMy mum and dad are the proudest people on Earth right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cannot stop speaking about me to everyone they meet, and their friends \u2013 who probably overlooked us at some point.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad raised me as a single dad \u2013 both me and my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referring to her Indian background and her \u201cvery traditional\u201d family life, she said: \u201cBeing from the kind of community I\u2019m from, they told my dad, \u2018There\u2019s no way you\u2019re going to be able to raise these two girls as a man, as a single parent\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy older sister is a doctor, and I\u2019m the winner of The Apprentice. What more can a dad ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KarishmaKarishma Vijay will use Lord Sugar\u2019s investment to expand her beauty business Kishkin (BBC\/Naked (A Freemantle Label)\/Matt Frost\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Vijay praised fellow finalist Myhill, saying: \u201cI have so much love for Pascha. I think she\u2019s incredibly inspiring and the most deserving.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people were questioning her place in the final and I just won\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe deserves a seat at that table, 100 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-535617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}