Apprentice star Luisa Zissman on her partying past: I have no regrets

The Apprentice runner-up Luisa Zissman has defended her former party lifestyle, saying that "an incredibly social" life doesn't stop her from being good at business.

"I hope people look at me and realize you can have a pretty wild, partying past and still be very, very good at what you do," the 25-year-old entrepreneur told BBC's Newsbeat.

Cake shop owner Leah, who lost out in The Apprentice final to Doctor Leah Totton, was one of the
most talked about contestants on this year's show, and her personal life became the subject of press attention after topless pictures were found online.

But Luisa has no regrets. "I'm not ashamed of what's out there about me," she told Newsbeat. "I'm very comfortable with their decisions that I've made."

Of the media's interest in her private life, she added, "I think everyone else is just really boring. I didn't realise how clean cut everybody else would be compared to me."

Since the final, Luisa has posed in magazines, but said it has not put off the 16 new investors for her business plan. "I've had quite open, honest and frank conversations with them. I said to them 'I'm doing this photoshoot, would that put you off investing?'

"I don't want to gallivant off and do something hugely irrelevant on television. I want to stick within my industry.

"It's just really positive for me. I couldn't be more happy with the result of the show."

This week, Luisa found herself back in the headlines after causing controversy on Twitter over the use of an apostrophe.

The brunette surprised her followers by asking for help with the name of her new baking accessories kit. "Is it Bakers Toolkit or Baker's Toolkit with an apostrophe?"

She then decided to lose the punctuation mark because "I like the look of bakers."

Defending her decision, she told BBC Radio 5 she thought people had over-reacted.

"I really don't know what the big hoo-ha is all about," she said. "I've ditched the apostrophe.

"You look at big brands, like Waterstones, who famously ditched their apostrophe last year — it's about marketing, about the look and feel of a brand, and I just don't think it's necessary.

"We are part of a new digital media age where you don't have apostrophes in URL names and I think it can be confusing for consumers if there's an apostrophe in your brand name and they go onto your website and there's no apostrophe in your URL. It's just not used anymore."

Luisa went on to say she was "never very good at nouns, verbs and pronounces, despite getting an A for her English A-level.

"To be honest, this isn't about grammar," she added. "I know that the brand name will be grammatically incorrect.

"But it's really not a big deal to me, it's about creating a brand and something that will be recognised and I'm just leading by example. Look at Harrods, Selfridges, Boots - they don't have the apostrophe.

"Obviously in the content of the website, I will put apostrophes in. I will have someone proofread the website for me.

"I'm brilliant at building multi-million-pound businesses but perhaps grammar isn't my strongest point."