Luisa Christina Zissman is an English retail entrepreneur and reality television personality. She was the runner-up on the ninth series of The Apprentice and finished fourth on Celebrity Big Brother 13. She later became a presenter and regular panellist on Big Brother’s Bit on the Side. Zissman is also one half of podcast LuAnna: The Podcast with Anna Williamson.
Her first employment was at an estate agent on Saturdays which she took at 16 to pay the upkeep costs for a horse her parents bought for her. One of her first post-school jobs was at Electronic Data Systems, but she later stated that she decided to go into business because she disliked being told what to do. She is based in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, and she had her own baking website, eBay electronics business and cupcake shop - Dixie's Cupcakery, named after her daughter. Although she claimed on several occasions that these three businesses have a net worth of £1.5 million, The Independent valued the three businesses, all trading names of Boutique Trading Ltd of which Zissman is listed as director and company secretary, at £194. They also noted that the eBay electronics store she owned was a "one-stop shop for several sellers, including electronics, baking and beauty products". Zissman came to public attention when she appeared on the ninth series of The Apprentice in 2013, where she was runner up. On 23 July 2013, Zissman appeared on BBC Radio 1's Innuendo Bingo. In November 2013 she launched her business, named Bakers Toolkit, at the Cake International Show. Earlier, there had been some debate about whether the name should include an apostrophe. She joined the thirteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother on 3 January 2014. She finished fourth overall behind Jim Davidson, Dappy and Ollie Locke. Zissman revealed she received a six figure sum for her stint on the show. Luisa also regularly appears as a guest on This Morning and Good Morning Britain as a guest to debate current new stories. She has since appeared on Reality Bites, News Thing, Loose Women and Sam & Billie: The Mummy Diaries on ITVBe.
Personal life
Zissman married her first husband, entrepreneur Oliver Zissman in 2009. Zissman gave birth to her first daughter, Dixie in 2010. Zissman and her husband divorced in 2014. While on Celebrity Big Brother in 2014, she came out as bisexual, and had sought treatment for sex addiction. Zissman married her second husband, Irish businessman Andrew Collins in 2015. The couple have two daughters.
Controversy
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zissman posted that she blamed the Chinese government for the spread of the disease on her Instagram, which some had taken offence to and considered to be racism, something she denied in follow up posts.
