The Apprentice star Lottie Lion has insisted that she was not being racist when she referred to a fellow contestant as “Gandhi”.
Over the weekend, Lottie was at the centre of headlines after The Sun reported she’d been accused of racism by one of her competitors, Lubna Farham, who is of Pakistani heritage.
Lubna claimed that Lottie told her to her “shut up, Gandhi” in a WhatsApp group message with their fellow contestants.
However, responding to these allegations, Lottie has insisted that her intention was not to be racist, claiming the group had previously been sharing quotes from Gandhi prior to her comment.
“It is not true that I would ever be racist,” she told PA news agency. “My use of the word Gandhi was misinterpreted, it was as candidates in the group chat had been quoting Gandhi previously.”
She continued: “The comments were taken out of context, and I ask the public not to make judgment without knowing the full context.
“At the moment, I would like my focus to be on the show, and I’m not interested in negative media attention.”
The Sun reported that the BBC declined to offer any comment in response to their initial story.
Lottie previously tweeted that The Sun’s allegations were “utterly disgusting” and had been written to “ruin her career”.
“Do not believe everything you read online... it is desperate what some people will say for a bit of money,” she tweeted in response to The Sun. “Racism is unacceptable but so is false news. I won’t be entertaining this further.”
The 15th series of The Apprentice launched on BBC One last week, and continues on Wednesday 9 October at 9pm.