Will '˜glum' Joanna sweeten Sugar's TV show?

Joanna Jarjue, who, at 23, is also the youngest of the 18 hopefuls in the returning BBC series, describes her default expression as “glum”.

“Some people have smiley faces but not me,” she said. “People always tell me, ‘Smile, love, it may never happen’.”

Miss Jarjue, who grew up as the only child of a single mother on Wakefield’s Lupset estate, went on to study politics at Newcastle University and is now a digital marketing manager in Manchester, creating “multi-channel strategies to improve the digital footprint of companies”.

She is being portrayed in some quarters as Lord Sugar’s “boardroom bombshell”, following the publication of bikini self-portraits on social media.

But she said: “It’s not an image I’m trying to present. Those pictures of me were posted long before I went on the show.

“Most people go on holiday and post pictures of themselves to family and friends. That’s all this is. I don’t have a massive following.”

She said she had formed lasting friendships with other contestants, but would not be drawn on 34-year-old wedding company director Siobhan Smith, who tells the programme her role model is KFC’s Colonel Sanders.

The new series begins on Wednesday.