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" The youngest candidate on this season of The Apprentice, Poppy Carling made up for her lack of experience by pushing forth creative ideas and working to stay ahead. Unfortunately, her unsuccessful bid as project manager during this week&amp;#039;s task found the 24-year-old California native taking most of the heat in the boardroom, where she was subsequently fired. We caught up with Poppy to hear her thoughts on the experience. What was your reaction to Anand&amp;#039;s cheating and elimination happening so suddenly this week? &amp;quot;Well, I was very disappointed. I had formed a pretty close bond with him on the last task that David was the project manager for. I think we were all sort of stunned - I felt like I had been cheated on by my significant other! My partner and my teammate betrayed me, and a lot of us felt like that because we had worked well and closely with Anand.&amp;quot; How did it feel to hear Kim Kardashian&amp;#039;s negative reaction to your ad campaign? &amp;quot;After seeing the other team&amp;#039;s product, I agreed that ours lacked sophistication. At the same time, if you look at her promo material, she&amp;#039;s wearing a big gaudy boa and is wearing rhinestones in her ears. So for her to say we were entirely off... I sort of felt like she should have looked at her pictures first.&amp;quot; When do you think things started to go wrong with the challenge? &amp;quot;I think that as soon as Mr Trump gave us Liza, I sort of had this inkling in the back of my head that we were going to lose the task. She doesn&amp;#039;t contribute much, which I knew would be an uphill in the beginning. Still, I also thought with three women in a female-oriented task it could be good but as it went on we began to realize that we needed a man there.&amp;quot; Did you realize, upon losing the task, that you would be the one going home? &amp;quot;By the time I got to the boardroom, I had pretty much accepted my fate. But at the same time, I was willing to put up a bit of a fight. I decided to attack Stephanie because there has been a number of tasks which she has barely gotten through. Stephanie was in charge of the promotional materials on this task, which we lost, and there were a number of other flaws that she&amp;#039;d made over the competition but I realized that it wasn&amp;#039;t working.&amp;quot; How did you feel being thrown under the bus by Stephanie? &amp;quot;She did that to every project manager she worked for! Look at the project with David - she was his right-hand man and then got to the boardroom and named him as the person to be fired. She was very underhanded in the way that she supported her team. She&amp;#039;s a tricky woman, so my hat goes off to her for fooling all of us.&amp;quot; Did you find it hard to defend yourself when Liza and Stephanie were arguing in the boardroom? &amp;quot;I sort of felt like I could take a backseat for a moment because the limelight was off of me. The two of them were bickering as usual so I just sort of thought, &amp;#039;You know what? Let them fire themselves&amp;#039;. I didn&amp;#039;t have to enter an argument between them that didn&amp;#039;t concern me much. I&amp;#039;m also not the type of person who will speak over people - I will listen to them and observe and then say what I have to say in an educated manner.&amp;quot; During last week&amp;#039;s task, David seemed to have little regard for you. Now you two are an item. How did that come about? &amp;quot;After I was fired, I went to a hotel called Ponderosa where all the fired contestants go. It was my birthday so we all went out for dinner and to Ellis Island the next day. David took me aside and deeply apologized to me. I think he realized then that I was more than just a young person. We had a long conversation and sort of got to know one another. I had a lot of reservations about him before getting into the relationship but we started hitting it off really well.&amp;quot; Did you have any inkling that David&amp;#039;s persona was only an act? &amp;quot;Yeah, I mean, I saw through it the whole time. In the task with the models, when he would get explosive about how I wasn&amp;#039;t feeding them, it was just so melodramatic that I knew it was an act. I decided to push back a little bit and be stubborn and did the opposite of what he wanted and just didn&amp;#039;t react at all to what he said. I think that irritated him even more, that I wasn&amp;#039;t into playing his game.&amp;quot; Do you feel like your young age and lack of experience was an advantage or a disadvantage going into this experience? &amp;quot;Both! The disadvantage was that I didn&amp;#039;t have the experience. I didn&amp;#039;t know and had to learn throughout the process, way more than my competitors had to learn. The advantage I had was that I was just out of school so my ideas were fresher, new and from my generation. We are the upcoming generation where companies will start catering to, so that was a good thing.&amp;quot; How do you think the show has prepared you for a future career? &amp;quot;It was an excellent experience! I had never had a job before - this was my first job interview. The very first task when we had to design an office space, my first thought was that I&amp;#039;d never set foot in an office and I didn&amp;#039;t know how I would do it. I&amp;#039;ve learned a lot of things about maturity and how to behave and how to stand up for myself. I&amp;#039;ve never had to defend my ideas and work before and I gained some self-confidence and business skills. As for where I&amp;#039;m headed professionally, I&amp;#039;m not sure. I&amp;#039;m applying to dental programs right now and we&amp;#039;ll see where it leads me. I&amp;#039;m Catholic so I&amp;#039;d like to think that God has a plan for me.&amp;quot; The Apprentice continues Thursday on NBC &amp;amp;gt; Click here for our recap of this week&amp;#039;s episode "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-apprentice-usa/interviews/a287955/poppy-carlig-the-apprentice/>