Emily Maitlis, whose notorious interview with Prince Andrew forced the disgraced royal to announce his departure from public life, has revealed she believes the prince “had behaved rather well.”
The former BBC presenter, who interviewed the prince for its flagship Newsnight programme, told The Times that the duke’s behaviour compared favourably with most politicians.
She said, “I felt he’d behaved rather well. He had given us this hour in the palace and was willing to talk about stuff. Most politicians now won’t even talk about their own policies. So at least he had guts.”
And she shared her sentiment that the prince had also enjoyed the interview, unaware of the grief it would bring him. She said, “He spent a long time afterwards chatting to us and allowing us to take shots going along the corridors. He even gave me this guided tour, saying, ‘Her Majesty is just up these stairs. When you next come back I’ll have to show you more. And do you know what’s behind that door?’”
It was clear neither the prince, his people nor the wider palace firmament predicted the backlash to the interview, which saw him fail to show any regret for his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, fail to show any sympathy for Epstein’s victims, and also saw him bizarrely explain how he couldn’t have been spotted dancing, looking “sweaty” in a nightclub as detailed by his alleged victim Virginia Guiffre, as he had a condition which meant he was unable to sweat.
Maitlis told The Times, “The palace told us it was ‘firm but fair.’ I don’t think they realised how the public or press would react. They certainly weren’t expecting the furore.”
There are now two TV dramas being produced about the interview, one based on the book Scoops, written by Maitlis’s then producer Sam McAllister, and one by Blueprint Productions, which previously brought the scandals of British politician Jeremy Thorpe and the Duchess of Argyll to screen with, respectively, A Very English Scandal and A Very British Scandal. Maitlis is working with the latter company.
