Deborah Meaden fiercely defended by BBC Dragons’ Den star amid backlash to ‘harsh’ interrogation
Deborah Meaden came under fire by some viewers of last week’s Dragons’ Den after coming across as “harsh” towards a young business owner.
Lucie Macleod, 24, arrived at the Den to pitch her haircare company, Hair Syrup, which has already seen huge success on social media platform, TikTok. Speaking exclusively to GB News, she quickly threw her support behind Meaden’s strategy to offer advice, despite fans labelling it “harsh”.
Meaden, 65, noticed a few gaps in Macleod’s business knowledge despite the huge success of Hair Syrup and was swift to point out that she may need to take more time to consider a more thorough plan.
It came as Touker Suleyman asked: “How much dividend do you plan to take this year out of the business?”
“I don’t take dividends,” Macleod responded, which prompted Suleyman to ask: “So what do you take, then?”
“I take a wage,” the businesswoman responded, with the Dragon probing: “And do you have no plans to take any dividends?”
“Probably not for the next while, no,” she responded.
“So Lucie, how are you intending that an investor gets a return on their investment?” Meaden interjected.
“Well, I always saw that the return of investment would just come through naturally with the revenue growth of the company,” the hair company owner explained.
“But that money… So what happens with a company, it creates money,” Meaden shared.
“And that sits and is owned by the company. Then you have to make a decision to take that out of the company and that’s called dividends,” she went on.
Macleod responded: “Yes,” before Meaden noted: “But you’ve just said to Touker that you’re not going to pay dividends in the future.
“Now I’m not trying to catch you, I think you don’t really understand the mechanics of how companies work.”
Meaden shared a few more tips before congratulating Macleod on her success so far, stressing she should be proud of her achievements, particularly considering her young age.
Speaking to the People’s Channel, Macleod shared her thoughts on the subject after some viewers slammed the intense questioning.
“With Deborah’s questions, it might have been perceived by people as being a bit harsh,” she began. “You know, people are like, ‘They never talk to people like that. Why are they talking to you like that?’
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“But I think that it may have come across that way, but I filmed it eight months ago now, and because it is so established, they were like, ‘You need to get on it with these things now, because this is your time and you need to know.’
“They said to me, ‘You’re a really successful business owner, you really need to sort of knuckle down now and start.
“‘I know it’s been a bit crazy, but you really need to take the reins and sort of hold yourself like [a business owner]’, which I have done ever since.
“So I’m really grateful for all of it,” Macleod added as she summarised why she’d defended Meaden.