BBC The Apprentice star Mike Soutar's brush with death after eating chicken wrap

The businessman was in hospital for a month and recovering for much longer

The Apprentice's tricky interviewer Mike Soutar is back tonight as he puts the remaining five candidates under the microscope.

Claudine Collins, Linda Plant and Claude Littner will join Mike to disect the CVs of the candidates for Lord Alan Sugar before he chooses two to face off for his investment in the final next week.

Mike has been taking on interviewing duties on The Apprentice in the 2010s, and has built quite the reputation, often snapping up domain names for candidates' businesses in hilarious footage.

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But Mike once revealed he had been forced to step down from a big role because of illness.

Mike, who co-founded Shortlist Media, which publishes the Stylist magazine, stepped down as chairman in 2018 before moving to the Evening Standard as its first ever chief executive.

Dad-of-two Mike – married to wife Bev for nearly three decades – left the role in April 2020, revealing that he had been struck down with a terrible illness that saw him stay in hopital for a month.

In an interview with The Courier, Mike revealed: “I had worked my way up the corporate ladder and I had a very comfortable existence – I had a massive private office, I had not one, but two assistants, I had a driver.

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“The real catalyst was that I got ill. I ate a chicken caesar wrap and contracted salmonella which quickly mutated into typhoid.

“I was in hospital for a month and recuperating for several months.

“It really crystallised for me that if I had died then I would have died with real disappointment that I’d never been brave enough to do something for myself.”

Mike has had a lengthy career in the media industry, starting out writing horoscopes for a women's magazine and rising to top ositions.

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He has been the managing director of Kiss FM, editor of FHM and board director for the publisher TI Media, which produces well-known titles like Woman & Home and What's On TV.