How the BBC Secured Their Infamous Prince Andrew Interview
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Nothing prepares you for turning up at Buckingham Palace to meet Prince Andrew to discuss a potential interview about his friendship with a serious sex offender.
It was Stew’s [Stewart Maclean, Deputy Editor for BBC’s Newsnight] first time at the Palace, and I could sense his excitement. Emily [Maitlis, British journalist and former newsreader for the BBC] and I were most concerned about how to greet the Prince, and a kind member of the Palace staff hurriedly taught us the ‘curtsy’ - more of a head bob in my case. It kept us nicely distracted for a few moments, as we practised the right combination of bob and leg movements, while trying not to fall over in our respective shoes (high heels for Emily, snakeskin boots for me).
I hadn’t slept a wink all weekend. I’d been prepping, reading, talking to people who had met Prince Andrew to gauge how to approach him. Then I had been rehearsing possible questions in my head, thinking about what their sticking points would be, gaming every possible calibration and option. Thinking ahead. Thinking non-stop. I’d been obsessing. I didn’t usually get like this. My son Lucas, now thirteen, had even noticed. ‘You OK, Mum?’ I wasn’t.
That morning, on the way to work, I’d done something new. The kind of thing I would usually laugh at. I’d done affirmations. Well, more precisely, I had, under my breath, kept repeating the phrase ‘You’ve f***ing got this, Sam!’ Over and over. I must have looked demented striding along the streets of Hammersmith. By the time I returned that evening to make Bolognese, my life could be different.
This time, when I arrived at the Palace, things were stricter - our phones were taken and everything felt much more formal.
From my research and conversations, I was confident that Prince Andrew would be fun to negotiate with. He seemed open, confident, energetic, boisterous and thick-skinned and so I had assumed that despite the circumstances, the negotiation would likely be good natured. I could take a few risks in my tone, possibly even some banter. It would all come down to trust. And who he felt most comfortable with. I’d be 100% myself. This wasn't, in my view, a time to be conservative.
We had no clue how many people they were speaking to. No idea who else might come to the Palace before or after us. I wanted to leave with no regret. I also hoped I had an extra advantage that likely no one else would have. I’d actually represented people accused of the kinds of crimes we were talking about here. I had direct experience of alleged sex offenders, rapists, traffickers. I knew what was at stake — he was a man who could be facing a swathe of litigation and that is a terrifying place to be.
We all distracted ourselves. In my case, trying not to sweat even more profusely with nerves (I do sweat). And we waited for what felt like an age (about ten minutes) to be summoned upstairs. We went, with hearts in our mouths, back into that small room that I had first gone into, alone, all those months ago. Amanda [Thirsk, Prince Andrew’s Private Secretary] was there to greet us and said that His Royal Highness would be along shortly. We sat down in the dark wooden chairs. The room was snug. I was directly next to Emily, and Emily was next to the empty chair at the head of the table. The one where, shortly, a member of the Royal Family would sit, a few feet away.
I knew I’d probably never get to do anything like this ever again. I waited. Concentrated on my breathing. Wished I’d worn something smarter. We congregated by the doorway. Standing. Waiting for him to arrive. Thinking through the royal bob. Trying to remember the correct form of address — ‘Your Royal Highness’ the first time, ‘Sir’ in the interactions thereafter. A haze of nerves, hope, determination.
Suddenly, he appeared, from around the corner of the short corridor: ‘Morning!’ His voice was upbeat. He was smiling. He seemed friendly. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I brought someone with me!’ This was not something that any of us had expected to hear. We exchanged glances. Who could it be? A lawyer? Someone else in communications? Maybe someone from the Queen’s staff?
And then, from behind him, Princess Beatrice appeared.
To be frank, the only thing worse than speaking to a prospective interviewee about allegations of sexual impropriety, paedophila and sex with a seventeen-year-old-girl is having to do so in front of his daughter. Princess Beatrice was polite and engaged, carrying a notebook and pen, but she was evidently anxious about the meeting, unlike her father. The atmosphere palpably changed for us all.
In that moment, I had to make a split-second decision — who would be the person who had the most impact on the final outcome of this negotiation? Of course, the decision was for Prince Andrew, but it was clear that he was already thinking about who he would choose to speak to, rather than whether he would choose to speak at all, and we already thought that Amanda seemed keen for him to speak with a heavyweight interviewer, like Emily, rather than do an interview that could be accused of choosing someone who would give him an ‘easy time’.
But Princess Beatrice was a total curveball. I had heard she was close to the Queen, who might well ask for her opinion on the meeting, and also knew that she was very close to her father and was clearly there to protect his interests and to ensure that we were the right people to speak to.
In an imaginary meeting that envisaged after this, the Queen would turn to Andrew and ask him how it went. He’d reply, probably enthusiastically, that it went great, that it was a brilliant idea to do the interview. And then, she’d turn to Beatrice to get her view. The crucial second opinion. The Prince’s eldest daughter was now, in my opinion, the person who could make the difference between us getting the interview and someone else. So, I hastily recalibrated my tactics — less robust, more analytical, less direct, more explanatory, no banter, unless she seemed receptive, I’d keep it sober until everyone relaxed. I could see Emily and Stew were also a little thrown off, as we all sat down, crammed into that tiny room for a few feet from one another, about to try and negotiate the biggest interview of our entire lives.
The six of us sat face to face around the small table. Prince Andrew was to my right, Princess Beatrice was opposite me, in my direct eye line, writing many of our answers down. What followed was an intense two hours of questioning from Prince Andrew and his daughter — and with every minute it beams ever clearer that this wasn’t won yet.
The meeting veered between everything and nothing. I never even asked who else was in the frame at this point but obviously it was the interview that the whole profession, across the world, would give their right arm to do. The thing that was most surprising was that there was never any attempt to find out what we would ask or try to place any conditions on the questions.
It was clear that, if the Prince did agree to speak with us, this would be exactly the kind of no holds barred interview that our editorial ethos would demand, and one that our Editor would allow. We worked together to answer everything. This time I didn’t worry about dominating the negotiation. I wasn’t going to sit back for one second and have a single regret. I was firm in answering whenever I felt I was best placed to do so. I resolved I would get all of my points across, no matter what.
It became clear that Princess Beatrice was very attentive and that Prince Andrew liked my less formal side. I became more congenial. There were some moments of laughter. One second, we’d talk legal matters. The next minutes, we’d talk about something more personal. I even managed to get in an anecdote about how my mum had once worked with Robert Maxwell!
At one moment, Emily and Stew looked genuinely shocked at how I operate. I go big and I go bold. As we talked, I gave it to Prince Andrew very bluntly. ‘Sir. I have lived in this country for over forty years and, until now, I only knew two things about you. It’s that you’re known as “Air Miles Andy” and “Randy Andy” and I can absolutely tell you that the latter really doesn’t help you in your current predicament.’ Andrew paused, then laughed. The room collectively exhaled.
For his part, the Prince showed us huge trust. He told us things that are now global knowledge, which no journalist had likely ever heard before. In that tiny room, for the first time, he revealed that he supposedly had an ‘alibi’. He told us about Pizza Express. A children’s party. He mentioned the sweating, or lack thereof. He talked about how recently he had seen Ghislaine Maxwell. He admitted that he’d made errors of judgment. It was jaw-dropping stuff.
And then, he said something that I will never ever forget. As we concluded things, he turned to Princess Beatrice and said that they had a lot to discuss and they should go, straight after, upstairs, to talk about it, over a cup of tea, with Mum. For a split second I almost scoffed; what on earth did a grown man need to talk to his mum for? My brain hadn’t connected. And then it hit me. ‘Mum’ was the Queen. He was saying that he was going to tell her all about it. It was surreal.
When we left, we were all a little breathless. Stew was optimistic that they would say yes, while Emily and I were more circumspect. I am not a superstitious person but, in that moment, it felt like any optimism could jinx things. So, I just kept quiet, and knew we had done absolutely everything we could. Now, we just had to wait to see what decision they would make.
We returned to the office together. Related, like a group of drunk teenagers, what had happened to the always calm and collected Esme. She’d, rightly, stayed out of the whole process. Out of every negotiation. Out of every phone call. She kept a cool head for us all. We were going to need it.
We’d agreed to keep the negotiations in a very small circle of trust. It was crucial that other programmes or outlets didn’t know how close we were, and we knew that any foolish indiscretion or leak would ruin our chances. If even a diary piece or tweet outed that we were in negotiations, our trust and credibility with the Palace could be trashed. I didn’t even tell my mum, my son, my best friend, my boyfriend. It felt strange not to share, but I had promised not to. We told no one else on the team. If we got it, we’d have to bring more people in to get it done. For now, only a handful of us knew.
We found out less than twenty-four hours later. It was the longest twenty-four hours of my life. I couldn’t eat. I was a wreck.
We were elated at the news. I cried. With joy, exhaustion and relief. I wouldn’t really believe it until those cameras started rolling. But I wouldn’t have to wait long.
By now it was Tuesday, 12 November 2019. In just two days, with virtually no sleep from the combination of excitement and dread, we would all find ourselves back inside Buckingham Palace, face to face with Prince Andrew again, conducting what turned out to be an interview more shocking than any of us could ever have predicted.
Excerpt from Sam McAlister’s book, SCOOPS: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews. First published September 13, 2022 by Oneworld Publications.
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