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Emily Maitlis has revealed Prince Andrew’s strange request after their Newsnight interview ended, as she reflects that it caused him to lose “the respect of the nation”.
The former BBC journalist said the Duke of York had asked if they could spend more time talking about Pizza Express and his sweating, as he said they “didn’t include his alibi”.
Maitlis has spoken of her experience conducting the “car crash” interview, which examined the prince’s friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, ahead of the release of a new three-part drama, A Very Royal Scandal on Amazon Prime.
She said: “He wanted to talk about the fact that he’d been at Pizza Express on the night in question.
“And it was a very complicated moment for us because, on the one hand, I knew that if he included some of the stuff that he wanted to talk about, for example the sweating and the Pizza Express alibi, it was not going to help his case, in fact, it was actually going to make it look worse.”
The BBC interview caused huge damage to Andrew’s reputation, and just days later he announced he would be stepping back from royal duties.
Facing questioning from Ms Maitlis, he emphatically denied having sex with the then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, saying he was in a Pizza Express in Woking with his daughters on the day of the said encounter.
It also saw him discuss his connection with Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a prison sentence for helping Epstein groom and abuse young girls at his various properties in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands.
In February 2022, nearly three years after the disastrous 2019 interview, it was announced that the duke had paid an out-of-court settlement to Ms Giuffre, ending a civil case against him in the US. It accepted no liability and Andrew has always maintained his innocence and rejected wrongdoing.
Reflecting on the impact of the interview, she said: "Prince Andrew, he lost his royal duties, he lost the ability to wear uniform, he lost the respect of the nation, and it became, I think, much more difficult for him in his place in the Royal Family," she said.
"And on the other side, we don’t know if Epstein’s victims gained anything from that. We don’t know if their lives materially changed," she added.
"There’s been no trial. There’s been a settlement... but we haven’t had that sense of closure there," she said.
She also revealed that a month after her interview, she was pulled aside by someone close to King Charles who told her: “HRH was not happy with the interview.”
The King, who was Prince of Wales at the time, has not reinstated Andrew’s roles within the royal family and it was reported on Monday that he will have to pay his own costs if he wishes to remain in the Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor.
Ms Maitlis added that since the interview, the shape of the monarchy has “slimmed down”, especially since the death of Andrew’s mother Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.
A Very Royal Scandal is out on Prime Video on 19 September and stars Ruth Wilson as Ms Maitlis, and Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew.
The journalist served as an executive producer on the series, which is being released just five months after the film Scoop, which also covers the disastrous interview, in April on Netflix.
