57 Facts About Lord Sugar

Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar was born on 24 March 1947 and is a British business magnate, media personality, author, politician and political adviser.

Lord Sugar was the chairman and part-owner of Tottenham Hotspur from 1991 to 2001, selling his remaining stake in the club in 2007 as well, for £25m.

Lord Sugar is known for being the host and "Boss" for the BBC reality competition series The Apprentice, which has been broadcast every year, with the exception of 2020, since 2005.

Lord Sugar assumed the role for The Celebrity Apprentice Australia for Australia's Nine Network in 2021.

Lord Sugar was born on 24 March 1947 in Hackney, East London, into a Jewish family.

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Lord Sugar's father, Nathan, was a tailor in the garment industry of the East End.

Lord Sugar's maternal grandparents were born in Russia, and his paternal grandfather was born in Poland.

Lord Sugar's paternal grandmother, Sarah Lord Sugar, was born in London to Polish parents.

Lord Sugar attended Northwold Primary School and then Brooke House Secondary School in Upper Clapton, Hackney, and made extra money by working at a greengrocers.

Lord Sugar started off selling radio aerials for cars and other electrical goods out of a van which he had bought for £50 and insured for £8.

Lord Sugar achieved lower production prices by using injection moulding plastics for hi-fi turntable covers, severely undercutting competitors who used vacuum-forming processes.

In 1985, Lord Sugar had another major breakthrough with the launch of the Amstrad PCW 8256 word processor which retailed at over £300, but was still considerably cheaper than rival machines.

In 1994, Lord Sugar financed the transfers of three stars of the 1994 World Cup: Ilie Dumitrescu, Gica Popescu, and most notably Jurgen Klinsmann, who had an excellent first season in English football, being named Footballer of the Year.

Lord Sugar appeared on television holding the last shirt Klinsmann wore for Spurs and said he wouldn't wash his car with it.

Lord Sugar referred to foreigners coming into the Premier League at high wages as "Carlos Kickaballs".

Lord Sugar wrote that Sugar had refused to give him the five-year contract he wanted, as he had not believed Sheringham would still get into the Tottenham team when he was 36.

Lord Sugar next appointed George Graham, a former player and manager of bitter rivals Arsenal.

Lord Sugar has described his time at Tottenham as "a waste of my life".

Lord Sugar later donated £3 million from the proceeds of the sale of his interests in Tottenham Hotspur to the refurbishment of the Hackney Empire in his native East End of London.

Lord Sugar became the star of the BBC reality show The Apprentice, which has had one series broadcast each year from 2005, in the same role as Donald Trump in the US version.

Until 2010, the winner was then employed in his company and since 2011 wins a partnership with Lord Sugar, including his investment of £250,000 to establish their own business.

Lord Sugar expressed a desire that the calibre of the candidates should be higher than those who had appeared in the second series and that the motives of the candidates for participating are scrutinised more carefully, given that certain of the candidates in previous series had used their successful experience in the show as a springboard to advance their own careers.

In September 2013, Lord Sugar lost his Employment tribunal counter-claim against Stella English, the 2010 winner of The Apprentice.

In September 2020, it was announced that Lord Sugar will be the new CEO on The Celebrity Apprentice Australia on Australia's Nine Network, replacing former CEO Mark Bouris.

In September 2012, Lord Sugar appeared as himself in a cameo in the Doctor Who episode "The Power of Three".

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In November 2012, Lord Sugar appeared as himself in a cameo in a special episode of EastEnders for Children in Need.

Lord Sugar was the owner of Viglen Ltd, an IT services provider catering primarily to the education and public sector.

Lord Sugar is Chairman of Amscreen, a company run by his eldest son Simon Lord Sugar, specialising in selling advertising space on digital signage screens that it provides to retailers, medical centres and leisure venues.

On 7 March 2011, Lord Sugar replaced Kip Meek on the board of the BBC initiated IPTV project known as YouView which is backed by ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 and broadband providers including BT and TalkTalk.

Lord Sugar was paid £500,000 for chairing YouView for the year ending March 2012.

In February 2009, the Evening Standard journalist Andrew Gilligan claimed that Lord Sugar had been approached to be the Labour candidate for Mayor of London in 2012.

Lord Sugar subsequently ridiculed the claim in an interview with The Guardian.

But, during Prime Minister Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle on 5 June 2009, the BBC reported that Lord Sugar would be given a life peerage and had been offered a job as the government's "Enterprise Champion".

On 7 June 2009, Lord Sugar sought to clarify the non-political nature of his appointment.

Lord Sugar stated that he would not be joining the government, that the appointment was politically neutral, and that all he wanted to do was help businesses and entrepreneurs.

Lord Sugar made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on 25 November 2009.

From 1997 until 2015, Lord Sugar was a member of the Labour Party and one of its largest donors.

In May 2017, Lord Sugar endorsed Theresa May for the 2017 United Kingdom general election.

On 31 March 2018, after complaints from Labour politicians, Lord Sugar deleted a tweet showing an edited image of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in a car with Adolf Hitler.

Lord Sugar responded that he was "not the originator" and that "There is no smoke without fire in Labour".

On 5 April 2018, Lord Sugar published an ode critical of the UK's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

In December 2018, Lord Sugar announced during a television interview that he would leave Britain if Corbyn became prime minister.

Lord Sugar endorsed Boris Johnson during the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.

Lord Sugar later endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2019 general election.

Lord Sugar has stated that he is an atheist, but remains proud of his Jewish heritage.

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Lord Sugar owns a four-seat Cirrus SR22 aircraft and a 13-seat Embraer Legacy 650 jet.

Lord Sugar is a prominent supporter and former owner of Tottenham Hotspur football club.

In February 2009, it was reported that Lord Sugar had initiated legal proceedings against The Sun newspaper following a report that he had been named on a "hit list" of British Jews in response to Israel's ongoing military operation in Gaza.

Lord Sugar was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours "for services to the Home Computer and Electronics Industry".

Lord Sugar holds two honorary Doctorates of Science, awarded in 1988 by City University and in 2005 by Brunel University.

Lord Sugar is a philanthropist for charities such as Jewish Care and Great Ormond Street Hospital, and donated £200,000 to the British Labour Party in 2001.

Lord Sugar was created a life peer as Baron Lord Sugar, of Clapton in the London Borough of Hackney on 20 July 2009.

On 29 October 2015, Lord Sugar was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 5 in the list of 100 Most Influential British Entrepreneurs.

Lord Sugar has been accused of having an "outdated" attitude towards women.

On 30 September 2013, Lord Sugar tweeted a picture of Chinese child crying 'because he was told off for leaving production line of iPhone 5'.

On 20 June 2018, Lord Sugar tweeted a picture of the Senegal national football team edited next to images of fake handbags and sunglasses, claiming that some of the players looked just like hawkers he had encountered in Marbella.

Lord Sugar later defended his tweet as a joke before taking it down, after accusations of racism.