It was late in the summer of 2003 when the producers arrived at Trump Tower to check out the set of the series, in which contestants had to show off their business skills in the hope of impressing Trump and winning a year-long apprenticeship at the Trump Organization.

He would fire the absolute wrong person,’ the producer added. ‘[He] had no idea what was going on, and he would just make something up.’

Our job was to make him look legitimate, to make him look like there was something behind it, even though we pretty much all knew that there wasn’t,” one producer said.