Behind the Prince Andrew interview on Jeffrey Epstein : NPR

Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew in Netflix film Scoop.

Peter Montagne/Netflix

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Peter Montagne/Netflix

Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew in Netflix film Scoop.

Peter Montagne/Netflix

“The big win.” In media jargon, this means THE interview with THE person at the center of a great story.

Think of Monica Lewinsky after her affair with then-President Clinton, or actor Alec Baldwin after the cinematographer was shot and killed on the set of his movie. Or Britain’s Prince Andrew after his friend Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges.

Interviews like these can require months of negotiations, calls, emails, and meetings to persuade that person to speak on the record. That’s what happened in 2019, when BBC journalist Emily Maitlis spoke with Prince Andrew, Duke of York, at Buckingham Palace.

Then-BBC Newsnight Booker Sam McAlister had spent almost a year speaking to Prince Andrew’s private secretary and the prince himself. The result was an infamous interview in which Prince Andrew described Epstein’s actions as “unseemly”, said the financier’s house was a “convenient place to stay” during a trip to New York and declared that he suffered from an illness which prevented him from sweating. .

The booking and interview have now been dramatized in the new Netflix film Scoop. McAlister spoke with All things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly explains how she got the interview and how she kept a poker face as the interview unfolded before her eyes.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

Marie Louise Kelly: So your task was not only to get the interview – to convince the palace and the prince to do it – but also to convince them to do a serious interview in which they would in no way be able to examine or control the questions. Tell us the argument that convinced them. What did you say?

Sam McAlister: Well, there’s a double argument, isn’t there? Here is a man who was once a national hero in the United Kingdom. He was the Queen’s beloved son, her favorite son obviously, a war hero. And now he was indeed, at best, a troubled prince. And then, on a more pretentious level, of course, there was Prince Andrew’s view of him, his behaviors and the allegations made against him, which of course he categorically denies. But it was a double opportunity: a human opportunity to return to the life he had, and a royal opportunity to restore his reputation in some way. So I think those two things are what really made this a dream opportunity, at least on paper, for him.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Andrew (right) in June 2019.

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Kelly: Was there a point in the negotiations where you were able to say, “I got this?” Like, it just landed. He is going to do it.

McAlister: There was a moment when I thought we might have it. The final negotiation takes place face to face with Prince Andrew and a surprise guest, his daughter Princess Beatrice, at Buckingham Palace. I mean, you can imagine how upsetting that was. It lasted about two hours. I felt we had a relationship. Emily, the presenter, was also there, as was Stuart Maclean, who was the assistant editor. And in that moment of relationship, there is a moment of peril and a moment of opportunity. And I said something quite bold. I told him the truth, which has always been my style, that he was known as “Randy Andy.”

And that’s really when he’s going to (either) laugh, and he knows that we have integrity and trust and that we’re honest with him, or he’s going to slam the door in our faces . Fortunately, it was the first. But you never know if someone is going to say yes until you get that last call.

Kelly: So you get the yes. The interview takes place. The prince’s responses seem increasingly tone-deaf, let me put it that way. Take me to this room. Where are you and what is going through your mind?

McAlister: Oh my God. So I’m about 15 feet behind him. And I was a criminal lawyer and I represented people accused of all kinds of things. And one of the great skills in this world is the poker face. And thank goodness for poker face – 15 feet behind these incredible responses, trying not to show any emotion, trying not to communicate panic or fear or dismay. And all I can see is the back of his head. So I saw his face for the first time when he came out a few days later. But it really was a masterclass in how to give terrible answers and, from my little point of view, a little personal masterclass in how to show no emotion on your face for an hour – one of the most long in the history of television, I would say.

Kelly: I mean, was there a moment where you thought, “Oh, my God, this is completely going off the rails?”

McAlister: I think it was almost every moment. It was like building. And after the first response, which was his softest response, every line was a line of information. Just watch them pile on top of each other over and over again. It was really journalistically, obviously, the highlight of my career and a pretty extraordinary experience.

Kelly: Well, the consequences of this interview were almost immediate. A few days later, Prince Andrew stepped down from his royal duties. Did you have the feeling, even as the interview was taking place, that this was going to have extraordinary consequences?

McAlister: I knew it was huge. I’m not going to lie. I knew how important this was in theory. But the idea that this would actually topple a member of the royal family – you know, sacked by his own mother and we’d still be talking about it, not to mention the fact that I would have the opportunity to see this incredible movie – it felt like that I would have been drunk if I had told you that. So I knew it was a scoop, but I just didn’t know it was the scoop of scoops.