The Apprentice candidate Lottie Lion has suggested that being a “conservative white woman” has made it easy to villainise her on the show.

Where to even start with this one…?

As of this week’s instalment of the BBC reality series, the librarian is one of five contestants who have made it through to the penultimate stage of the competition, but has repeatedly rubbed her fellow candidates up the wrong way during her time on the show.

In a new interview with The Sun, Lottie has accused bosses of editing her “in a nasty light”.

“I seem horrible when I watch the show,” she told the newspaper. “I watch it and I cringe. You can see they’ve hacked and edited the footage as much as they possibly can, it’s not honest.”

Lottie added: “[Being a Conservative party supporter] makes me an easier target for me to villainise.

“I’d say if I wasn’t a white conservative woman I could potentially pull the race card and say I’ve been victimised. But because I’m so socially mainstream I’m the easy one to say, ‘She’s the nasty character, we’ll make her the one everybody hates’.”

In the same interview, Lottie also spoke about the racism row she became embroiled in when it was revealed she’d told a fellow candidate to “shut up, Gandhi” in a group WhatsApp chat when filming was over.

Lottie maintains that her comment was not about Lubna’s Pakistani heritage, but rather because she had used a Gandhi quote within the chat.

“I’ve still got screenshots of the comments, and almost every single candidate who was involved in that particular conversation all came back with laughing emojis,” she said.

“They all found my comments hilarious, and Lubna just laughed at it at the time. If I hurt Lubna in any way, that wasn’t my intention and I apologise to her for any distress that I did cause.

“But she was laughing at the same time and we were having that two-way conversation, where it was a joke, she was involved in it.”

Lottie also claimed that the incident led to her being banned from Apprentice spin-off shows You’re Fired and the winner’s celebration You’re Hired.

She insisted: “But I don’t want to go and party with a bunch of candidates who have villainised me in the media with the most malicious intention possible.”

Lottie said she had been prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication as a result of the controversy surrounding her, claiming the show had only offered her mental health support in London, despite her living in Somerset. 

However, a spokesperson for The Apprentice told The Sun: “The wellbeing of the candidates that take part in The Apprentice is of paramount importance, and we have a thorough and robust duty of care protocol in place which includes an experienced network of support for candidates before, during and after filming – including making support available at a location convenient to them.”

HuffPost UK has also contacted The Apprentice regarding Lottie’s claims about being unfairly edited.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lottie dismissed accusations of transphobia, and when asked whether it was true she referred to Ryan-Mark and Riyonn as “the short gay one” and “the tall gay one”, she responded: “It certainly wasn’t me who started that name. Of course, I called them that because we all did.

“If they had a problem with being called the tall gay one and the short gay one they would have had issues with everybody, not just me.”

Lottie and her four remaining competitors will each sit down with Linda Plant for the infamous interview stage of the contest in the next episode of The Apprentice, ahead of the final later this month.

The Apprentice continues on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.