In an interview with the Sunday Mirror of London after she was sacked, Melody said her firing was harder on her than being held at gunpoint at the age of 12 in Sweden and kidnaped by a deranged taxi driver in the UAE who dumped her in the desert.
Nothing could prepare Melody for the boardroom grilling at the hands of Lord Sugar, the business boss or Donald Trump who does the firing on the British version of “The Apprentice.”
The remaining competitors were divided into two teams, given £250 of wholesale goods and told to do the most basic business task—sell off the goods and buy more assets to sell. It was Melody’s second time as team leader.
Melody told her team to sell to retailers, while the other team decided to sell directly to the public. Melody had made the wrong decision. The error was compounded when her team tried to sell £25 watches to a pound store (the British version of a dollar store with a limit of £1 on what it sells).
The opposition delayed re-investing their earnings, violating their basic orders from Lord Sugar. So he assessed a £100 penalty. But even after that fine, the team ended up with £751, some £23 ahead of Melody’s team. And so Melody got sacked.
The Iranian-born Melody, 26, actually did well overall. Sixteen men and women started in the competition for a £250,000 ($400,000) prize. With Melody’s firing, five remain.
Melody had always managed to keep her cool – and her steely attitude led to her becoming one of the most controversial figures on this series, with Lord Sugar branding her “ruthless” and a “tiger” before he dumped her on the street.
A number of high-profile clashes with other contestants added to her tough image.
But her distraught reaction when she was sacked proved just how desperate she was to secure Lord Sugar’s investment funds.
Melody explained as she left the show: “When I’m coming across as most confident and arrogant is when I’m feeling my most insecure and vulnerable. It’s my way of covering up.”
Afterward, Melody opened up to the Sunday Mirror about her life with dramatic stories never reveled before the viewing public.
“I’ve cheated death so many times that sometimes I think I’ve got nine lives,” she said. “I was born during the Iran-Iraq war when bombs were blowing up neighbors’ houses.
“I was bound and gagged in my own home by three burglars who threatened to shoot my mum. And then three years ago I was convinced I was going to die when I was driven off into the desert outside Abu Dhabi and dumped.
“Whenever I was faced with these terrifying situations I managed to find an inner strength and stay calm. It has made me a real fighter.
“But when people saw me in the boardroom on [“The Apprentice”] all that strength and confidence was stripped away to pure emotion and I showed just how much winning ‘The Apprentice’ actually meant to me.
“I didn’t want to just get to the final. I didn’t want to come second. I wanted to win. I was absolutely desperate to work with Lord Sugar and I was devastated when I was fired.”
Melody was born in Tehran. Between the new rules after the revolution and the war with Iraq, her family decided to leave. Her father, a math teacher, and her university-educated mother decided to use fake passports to flee to Europe.
On the first attempt, they were stopped at the border and Melody’s father was arrested. The second time around they made it to Malmö in Sweden and the family set up a restaurant and started enjoying life.
“Looking back it was the happiest time of my life,” said Melody. “I was at a completely white Swedish school and I did get a bit of stick because I looked and sounded different, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle as my life had never been easy. On the whole I loved it in Sweden.”
Then at the age of 12 her happiness was shattered. She said: “My parents had separated by that point and I had a little sister. But on that day I was at home with my 11-year-old brother.
“We heard a knock at the door and, although we’d been told never to answer to strangers, my brother sprung up and pulled down the handle. “There was a man standing there I didn’t recognize and he started talking about how he lived in a flat downstairs and that our shower was leaking through the floor.
“I knew something was wrong because I’d never seen him before. Then all of a sudden he motioned with his hand and two men burst in holding handguns.
“My first reaction was just one of panic. I turned and ran towards the balcony, but one of the men grabbed me and herded us into the bedroom.
Then the third man shoved gags in our mouths, tied us up and threw us into a cupboard. He said, ‘If your mother comes back, we’re going to shoot her’.”
Only minutes later, the door to their hiding place opened. It was their mother “My mum must have literally passed them on the stairs as they were leaving. When she saw us she was just absolutely dumbstruck. She was so stunned she didn’t even untie us. It was actually me that managed to wriggle out and call the police.”
Melody says she wasn’t traumatized by the event and even went to school the next day. The culprits were never caught.
Soon after, the family moved to Britain to start over in Birmingham. At school Melody says she was bullied again – only this time it was much worse.
She said: “I hated every second of my school life in Birmingham. I was bullied because I seemed different and because we didn’t have much money. I was teased about my clothes … but I always stood up for myself.
“And I always had this absolute determination to succeed and do well. At 16, I got a job in Sainsbury’s [a British supermarket] stacking shelves because I hated taking money from my mother.”
At 18, she earned a place at Oxford Brookes University studying law. While there, she set up a youth outreach program for which she won an award.
After finishing her degree, she started up her own business to teach children and young people innovative skills.
On a trip abroad in 2008, she changed planes in Abu Dhabi and decided to pass the time with a shopping trip. In a cab back to the airport, she fell asleep, waking an hour later to find she was being driven down a desert highway miles from anywhere.
She said: “I instantly knew something was very wrong. But I tried to stay calm and asked the guy whether we had gone past the airport. He immediately looked back at me with a horrible expression and just hissed, ‘Shut up.’ God knows where he was taking me. I was terrified. Words can’t describe how horrendous it feels knowing that your life is completely in someone else’s hands.
“Then all of a sudden, he swerved off the motorway on to a roundabout, sped round it three times and shot back on to the main road.
“I started screaming at him to let me out and he careered over three lanes of traffic and pulled over on the hard shoulder. I jumped out, grabbed my bags and he drove off leaving me in the desert in 40-degree [104 degrees Fahrenheit] heat.
“I hailed another cab, made the long drive back to the airport—and I’ve never been so happy to get on a plane in all my life.”
She added: “Obviously an experience like that is terrifying, but it is that kind of thing that has made me the person I am today. I’m a fighter and I will never give up if I want something.”
Melody says her business is thriving and she is getting married to her boyfriend of five years next summer.
She said: “I am so grateful for the opportunities I have been given – things could have been so different. I loved my time on The Apprentice. Although it was painful, I wouldn’t change it for the world as it marks the next chapter of my new life.
“I have overcome a lot but I honestly believe if I can do it, anyone can.”
