Contents

Katie Hopkins

Early life

Katie Hopkins was born to Roy and Anona Hopkins in 1975.^[7][8] As a child she attended private school and then North Devon CollegeinBarnstaple. She attended Exeter University, studying Politics and Economics,^[8] and has trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.^[9] She was once a stand-by contestant for reality show Big Brother^[10] and appeared in an un-aired television pilot of the programme.^[11] Hopkins has worked as a consultant for organisations such as Guinness, Smirnoff, Moët et Chandon, Reuters, Thomson Financial and Barclays.^[12]

Personal life

At University, Hopkins began a romantic relationship with fellow student Alan Hickman which lasted until 2001.^[8] Hopkins later left Hickman for her boss, Damien McKinney.^[13] He was a father of three and 15 years her senior.^[8] The couple left Britain to live in New York; their daughter India was born there in June 2004.^[13] They returned to Britain shortly after India's birth and got married the following year. Their second daughter Poppy was born August 21, 2005.^[13][14]

After filming The Apprentice, Hopkins took up a job at the Met OfficeinExeter.^[15] Here, she met Mark Cross, a married design manager,^[16] and soon photographs of them emerged depicting them engaged in sexual intercourse. This was widely reported in the tabloid press.^[8][16][17] Hopkins is currently engaged to Cross and their son, Maximillian William, was born in November 2008.^[18][2]

The Apprentice

In 2006, Hopkins was selected from over 10,000 people to be one of the final 16 candidates in series three of the reality TV show The Apprentice.^[19] The opening episode of the series, broadcast on 28 March 2007, attracted over four million viewers.^[20] She received particular media attention owing to her on-screen romantic relationship with fellow candidate Paul Callaghan – the first such relationship to feature on the show.^[21] She rejected Sir Alan Sugar's offer of a place in the final episode of the programme, citing problems regarding childcare provision for her daughters, and withdrew from the competition at the end of the penultimate task.^[22] The episode pulled in 6.2 million viewers, while the following You're Fired! episode, in which Hopkins was interviewed, was watched by 3.1 million.^[23] (In fact, since Hopkins withdrew, she avoided being dismissed with Sir Alan Sugar's catch phrase, "You're fired!".^[24])

Hopkins was the project manager of her team on The Apprentice for two tasks, in week two^[25] and again in week nine.^[26] Her team won both of these tasks.^[25][26] She was criticised by Sir Alan Sugar for being a "loser", due to her being on the losing team frequently.^[27] She, however, defended herself by responding that whenever she led, her team won. Contestants Adam Hosker and Ghazal Asif brought Hopkins back to the "boardroom" in weeks seven and eight of the competition, both effectively failing to get her fired.^[28][29]

Comments and views

Hopkins gained notoriety on the programme for her comments toward other contestants. These include calling Naomi Lay a "dog",^[30] and wishing that fellow contestant Adam Hosker would get run over at the car salesroom in which he worked.^[31] Hopkins also derided fellow contestant Kristina Grimes by comparing her to a limpet^[24][32] and mocking her fashion sense and use of fake tan.^[16] Hopkins also accused Grimes of trying to turn The Apprentice into "The Kristina Show"^[33] and called her a "wench with a forked tongue".^[34] Comments were aimed not just at her fellow contestants but also at viewers of television shopping channels, maternity leave,^[35] the overweight^[36] and people with the names Mavis and Derek.^[24] Although these comments might have been offensive to some, she insisted in her You're Fired! interview that it was only in the name of comedy, and suggested that she "just needed to vent a bit".^[24]

Relationship with Paul Callaghan

While filming The Apprentice, Hopkins formed a relationship with fellow contestant Paul Callaghan. Various conflicting reports emerged about whether the couple had sex whilst participating in the programme. Reports originally suggested that the couple had had sexual intercourse in the attic of the house in which the candidates were living,^[37] though Callaghan vehemently denied this.^[38] He later retracted his statement and confirmed that they had made love outdoors.^[39]

Response

Hopkins emerged as a sort of a hate figure in the media, especially on internet forums, during her time on the programme.^[40] Sir Alan Sugar announced on The Apprentice:You're Hired! following Simon Ambrose's appointment that his opinion has severely been damaged following the comments she made about her fellow contestant Kristina, responding to her; "Katie, I could never have employed you if I had heard some of that" after seeing comments she made on her diary on the show. He also added that he believed that "she's gifted enough to rise above petty comments".

The tabloid newspapers also criticised her, comparing her to such fictional characters as Cruella De Vil, Widow Twankey, Darth Vader, J.R. Ewing, The Wicked Witch of the West, Miss Piggy, Catherine Tramell and Patrick Bateman.^{[41][42][43][44][45][46]} She has also been compared to real people, such as Ruth Badger, Princess Diana, Simon Cowell, Princess Anne, Margaret Thatcher and Jade Goody.^[47][48][49]

Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill writer Richard Curtis expressed his distaste for Hopkins, jokingly vowing to kill her when he accepted his Fellowship award at the 2007 BAFTA awards.^[50] Her fellow contestants have questioned why she took part in the programme.^[24] Simon Ambrose, a fellow contestant, told Nuts Magazine that he once "had a crush on her",^[51] and also criticised Katie’s much-publicised personal life as he came from a "broken home". Fellow contestant and rival Kristina Grimes said that Hopkins left the programme of her own accord as "she would have eventually got the axe".^[52] Ambrose also quoted Hopkins' friends' claim that her sole purpose in participating in the programme was to start a media career.^[8]

Hopkins, like all other Apprentice candidates, appeared on the accompanying spin-off programme, The Apprentice: You're Fired!, receiving a mixed response from the studio audience.^[24] When video clips of her comments about other candidates were shown, Hopkins explained that they were "quite funny". Michelle Mone, the founder of lingerie company, Ultimo and a guest on the episode, verbally attacked Hopkins, calling her "exceptionally selfish" and made remarks such as "You've given businesswomen a bad name".^[53] After this incident, Mone was dubbed the "bra woman" by the media.^[54] In the final episode of The Apprentice: You're Fired!, Sir Alan branded Hopkins as sad and unemployable.^[55] Hopkins' comments on leaving the programme contained support for Simon Ambrose to win The Apprentice, and revealed a desire to "smash a glass ceiling" over rival Kristina Grimes' head.^[56]

Sexism controversy

Sir Alan Sugar's questioning Hopkins about her childcare arrangements led to him being accused of sexism by the Trade Union Congress, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.^[57] He was accused of violating the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.^[58] This incident created a huge controversy and was well documented in the media.^{[4][59][60][61]} Sir Alan argued his case in an interview with GMTV host Fiona Phillips, stating that he was well aware of the rules.^[62]

Aftermath

After her appearance on The Apprentice, Hopkins signed two exclusive deals to sell her story: a newspaper deal with The News of the World and a magazine deal with Emap, the company behind Heat and Grazia magazines.^[63] In her News of the World interview, Hopkins played down media reports that she had broken marriages, but did reveal that she had had ten lovers and had sex with a man in the barracks at The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.^[64] She told the paper that Michelle Mone, who had verbally attacked her on The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, was probably "just happy to be out of the underwear factory for the day".^[65] She also told the paper that she lost her virginity aged 17 after leaving a convent school and that she hopes to be a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party, like Margaret Thatcher.^[64]

The day after Hopkins' final Apprentice episode aired, two prominent news stories emerged about her; stepdaughter Charlotte McKinney told the Daily Mail that Hopkins had ruined her family and driven the teenager to anorexia by sending her cards with stick men drawn on them,^[66] and another Mail article reported that fans of the programme were accusing the BBC of fixing her walk-out.^[67]

Hopkins revealed in an interview with BBC Radio Kent that she had great respect for Sir Alan Sugar, and that she believed she would have won the programme had she been in the final episode. She also said that the media's attitudes towards her did not affect her, but did affect her family.^[47] When talking to Fiona Phillips in an interview aired on GMTV Today on the morning of the final Apprentice episode, Hopkins suggested that, had she accepted Sir Alan's offer of a place in the final, she would have emerged victorious, despite that Sir Alan Sugar said that if she wanted to press on he would fire her, irrespective of who she was competing with.^[68] Hopkins told BBC Radio 1 that she has not yet ruled out a media career^[69] but has expressed an interest in starting a business venture.^[70]

She has appeared in an episode of 8 out of 10 Cats and has also been a guest-star on Loose Women and The Friday Night Project.^[71][72][73] Hopkins wrote a column for the Express and Echo newspaper in Exeter, much to the criticism of its readers, but was eventually asked to leave after a poll was put onto the publication's website asking if she should continue with the post.^[74] She has most recently presented a Five Live Report on family life and working mothers for BBC Radio 5 Live and contributed an article on the same subject to BBC Online.^[75]

Met Office firing

On 12 June 2007, the BBC reported that Hopkins had been dismissed.^[52] A Met Office statement said that she did not meet the required standards to complete her probationary period, and confirmed that her performance on The Apprentice and confessions about her private life were a factor in her dismissal.^[76] The spokesperson also stated that Hopkins was on a salary of less than £90,000, the salary she claimed for her job before the Met Office.

Hopkins later declared that she is taking the organisation to a tribunal over the decision.^[52] She has stated that the media were informed of her dismissal only an hour after she was fired^[62] and believes she has been used as a scapegoat.^[77]

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Hopkins joined the 2007 series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! as a replacement for Malcolm McLaren, who dropped out just before the show started.^[78] Reports of an appearance by Hopkins had appeared as early as June 2007.^[79] Hopkins was the second celebrity voted out of the camp on Thursday 22 November 2007.

Hopkins took part in one "Bushtucker trial" in which she won ten stars out of a possible ten. For her task she was forced to remain in a coffin suspended over a canopy that began filling with cockroaches.

Political Life

Katie Hopkins is running for MEP for the South West England Constituency as an Independent candidate. ^{[80][81][82][83][84]}

References

External links

• The Apprenticeatbbc.co.uk
• Katie HopkinsatIMDb
• Template:Tvtome person