TV Paula was a fat boozer

MRS BOUFFANT': Curly-haired Paula on Apprentice

05/04/2009

FOXY redhead Paula Jones was a WILD, CHUBBY BOOZER when she worked as a university tutor.

Pals from those days say although she comes across as "lovely and sweet" on the TV show, she used to be as fiery as her hair.

One said: "She just wasn't a very nice person at all-really arrogant.

"It would be great if she showed those colours on telly. She could actually be a real star of the show."

Paula, 29, now a slick human resources consultant, wrote on her Friends Reunited webpage when she worked at Keele University, Staffs, that she was "drunk half the time to say the least".

She adds: "I'm still mad as ever."

Paula became a tutor while studying at the college for a masters degree in industrial relations and human resource management. Before that she gained a BA in geography at the same university.

The former pal said: "We would see her in the halls but she wasn't the sort of warm person you could go up to and talk to.

"She could definitely handle her booze though. Paula was known for loving a good drink.

"She wasn't that pretty and she was also chubby but she was just one of those women who got on well with blokes and always had swarms of them around her.

"I can see her doing better in the tasks where she is working with the male contestants."

Paula, 29, told the Apprentice bosses in her application for the show that she "wants to be liked" and "shies away from conflict".

But one of Paula's old school teachers from the Shelfield Community Academy in Walsall, West Midlands, paints rather a different picture.

Head of sixth form Mike Sweeney said he was not surprised in the least to see his former pupil in Sir Alan's boardroom. He explained: "Of all the students who have passed through the sixth form in the 20 years I've been here, there are probably two students I'd have expected to see on The Apprentice, and Paula was one of them.

"She can be quite a fiery character."

Paula, who organised a prom at secondary school, was known then as "Mrs Bouffant" for her big hair.

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