Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview ‘reset shape of monarchy’, Emily Maitlis suggests

Journalist says broadcast was one of Elizabeth II’s ‘last big decisions’ that ‘potentially had ramifications’ for the Royal family

Emily Maitlis has questioned whether her Newsnight interview with the Duke of York “reset the shape of the monarchy”.
The former BBC journalist said that one of Elizabeth II’s “last big decisions” was to allow her son to do the interview, which had disastrous ramifications for him and severely dented the Royal family’s reputation.
Speaking at the premiere of the first episode of A Very Royal Scandal, a dramatisation of events surrounding the 2019 interview, Maitlis said: “I guess the question that we’re asking ourselves now is, has it reset the shape of the monarchy in any form?
“You have to wonder, were there people around Charles – Prince Charles at that point – who said, ‘Was that the right decision? Was it a bad decision? Should Charles have a different role? Has the shape of the monarchy slightly changed as a result?’
“So I think you’re starting to see, potentially, the ramifications in terms of the shape of the monarchy.”
Both Maitlis and Michael Sheen, who plays the Duke in the three-part Prime Video drama, acknowledged that it was a story with no conclusive ending.
“We don’t definitively know what he did or didn’t do and what happened,” Sheen said.
“There is no closure.” Maitlis added, noting that while the courts had recognised that the Duke’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, “we don’t know that she was a victim of Andrew”.
Ruth Wilson, who plays Maitlis, said she was attracted to the script because it “asks more questions than it gives solutions”.
“It’s asking the audience to think about what they’re watching, what this thing was, and the larger context,” she said.
Sheen explained that when he first took on the role, he looked for “the point of connection”, a facet of the Duke’s character that would hook him in.
The answer came in the form of footage of the Duke’s triumphant return from the Falklands War in September 1982.
“It was the footage of Andrew when he came back from the Falklands, on the dockside with the rose in his mouth, and thinking, ‘that’s about as good a moment as you’re ever going to get’,” Sheen said.
“You’re the brave, conquering hero returning. You’re really fit and really hot, and everyone thinks you’re great. And it was sort of downhill from there, and that journey was my hook in, that’s what got me in there to go, what’s that like?”
Sheen said he had had to make his own, private, decision about the Duke’s involvement potential with Ms Giuffre to take on the role.
“Obviously, I can’t play ambiguity, I have to play specificity,” he said. “So I had to make some decisions and choices, which I never told anyone.”
The series comes five months after the release of Scoop, a Netflix drama on the same subject that was based on an account of the interview by former Newsnight producer and booker Sam McAlister.
In that version, McAlister plays a central role but in A Very Royal Scandal, which is released on September 19, she is a peripheral character.