The Apprentice candidate Reece Donnelly has been forced to leave the current series on medical grounds, it’s been revealed.
In Thursday night’s upcoming instalment, the theatre school owner will share with his fellow contestants that he’s unable to join them in an on-location task in Dubai, due to undisclosed “health reasons”.
In a statement shared with HuffPost UK, Reece said: “My goal of being on The Apprentice was to showcase that Scotland has amazing businesses and entrepreneurs. I really hope I’ve done that.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time on the show and I’m looking forward to watching my fellow candidates in the rest of the series.
“I’m so grateful for my time with Lord Sugar and the team.”
Reece is the second of this year’s candidates to leave the show of his own accord, following on from Shannon Martin earlier in the run.
After her exit aired last month, Shannon told Metro that she had been struggling with not knowing what was happening with her business back home while she was competing on The Apprentice.
“I just really felt like I couldn’t focus on the tasks because I was constantly thinking about what was going on at home, ‘what’s happening with the business? Is everything OK?’,” she said.
“I knew in the back of my mind that of course everything would be okay, the team are amazing. But I’m a perfectionist, I need to know what’s going on all the time and not being able to know how things were going on at home or what was happening at work was really hard for me.”
The Apprentice continues on Thursday night at 9pm on BBC One.