Emily Maitlis reveals she never set out to destroy Prince Andrew but is ‘proud’ of her infamous Newsnight interview which saw the Duke of York step away from royal duties

• Maitlis knew she had to do an interview ‘that would hold up in a court of law’

BBC presenter Emily Maitlis insists she never set out to destroy Prince Andrew’s Royal standing or career future with their infamous Newsnight interview.

Maitlis remains ‘proud’ of the hour long interview, which in part led to Andrew withdrawing from public life and having his Royal titles removed.

The TV host feels Andrew decided to push forward with a chat to aid his daughters’ long term reputation amid his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of his own sex abuse, which he has always denied.

The popular presenter and journalist confided that she felt her ‘cross examination’ could prove to be essential evidence in a potential criminal or civil trial for the former Duke Of York.

Maitlis revealed: ‘I knew I had to do an interview that would hold up in a court of law once we had the chance there could not be a misstep’, adding: ‘It felt like a trial.’

BBC presenter Emily Maitlis insists she never set out to destroy Prince Andrew’s Royal standing or career future with their infamous Newsnight interview

The TV host feels Andrew decided to push forward with a chat to aid his daughters’ long term reputation amid his friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein (pictured) and allegations of his own sex abuse, which he has always denied

Maitlis reckons that the hour long TV chat in November 2019 ‘changed his life more profoundly than he’d ever anticipated’.

‘He lost a lot from doing that interview. My intention was not to ruin his life. That was not on my radar. I am really proud of the interview itself actually.

READ MORE: Emails say Prince Andrew met paedophile Jeffrey Epstein while the financier was still under house arrest 

‘I am proud of the team, of what we did, how we got it and what we put on air.’

While PR experts and Royal insiders declared the ‘interview of a lifetime’ a career ending disaster, Maitlis defended Andrew’s efforts to speak about the scandal.

‘Andrew is a big presence. He’s a big chap and has a very sort of booming deep voice and very charming, and he was confident of what he had.

‘This is a man who thought he was innocent of all of the allegations about having trafficked sex, having befriended a paedophile, and he wanted to convince the world that he was innocent. But I do understand that one of the many difficulties with being royal is you don’t get that right of reply.

‘You don’t get to tweet out if you don’t like a story. So I could see why he would want to talk to us. I knew that if they said yes, it would be the most extraordinary piece of television that I’d ever made and possibly that he had too.’

Her fresh insight into the car crash interview features on new documentary Secrets of Prince Andrew, which airs on A & E Channel in the USA on Monday, August 21 at 8pm ET/PT.

Newsnight former producer and talent booker Sam McAlister opens up too on the extraordinary build up to landing the historic interview, including telling the Royal that his behaviours had looked ‘dodgy at best, guilty at worst.’

The popular presenter and journalist (pictured) confided that she felt her ‘cross examination’ could prove to be essential evidence in a potential criminal or civil trial for the former Duke Of York

McAlister recalled how after taking ‘star power’ presenter Maitlis to Buckingham Palace to discuss the parameters of an interview, they were shocked when Princess Beatrice joined them.

Maitlis reflected: ‘It’s the first time the thought crossed my mind that maybe he was doing it for her. ‘Your life has been hellish. You’ve had to read these headlines. You’re trying to get married. I’m going to do this to make it better for you.’

READ MORE: Queen Elizabeth ‘realised Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview was a car-crash before he did’

‘I don’t know if that’s true, but it crossed my mind.

‘He wanted to deny any knowledge of Virginia Giuffre or the allegations that were circling.’

McAlister added: ‘It felt really weird. It’s usually the case when you’re doing these kinds of negotiations that you deal with the second in command. 

‘But we were going to be there, see him face to face, meet him, discuss these issues with him, which were delicate and difficult and we were going to do it in his home effectively on his terms, negotiating for something that was beyond belief.

‘And around the corner comes his daughter, Princess Beatrice. That was really quite a curve ball of curve balls.

‘Can you imagine being in Buckingham Palace about to talk to a member of the royal family about sexual offenses? That’s pretty tricky, and now I’ve got to do it in front of his daughter. ‘

Andrew admitted he had to get a sign off from his mother for a televised interview in November 2019.

Maitlis added: ‘So we all sort of sat around wondering where does it go from here? And then he said this curious phrase, I’ve got to seek approval from higher up. Of course, he’s talking about the Queen.

‘You are to ask your mom if it’s a good idea? This is a decision that’s going right to the top.’

Andrew said he had no recollection of meeting Virginia Giuffre, who he was pictured with alongside Ghislaine Maxwell (right)

Maitlis’ fresh insight into the car crash interview features on new documentary Secrets of Prince Andrew

The meeting with Andrew and Beatrice was ‘on Monday in the afternoon and we found out on Tuesday morning, it’s a yes.’. Maitlis revealed: ‘The Queen had given us her seal of approval.’

Maitlis praised her fellow show producer Esme Wren for days of prepping question and answer scenarios with Andrew, but was still ‘sick’ moments before the TV chat.

‘I knew that I had to do an interview that could hold up in a court of law once we knew we had the chance, there couldn’t be misstep.’

READ MORE: ‘Prince Andrew thought THAT Newsnight interview went WELL’ 

Moments before the ‘chess’ like interview, stress overwhelmed ‘breathless’ Maitlis and she ran for the toilet. ‘I start to feel actually just really sick.

‘And so I sort of dived into the loo, (I) wanted to have two seconds of going, ‘where am I? Right? What’s going on? Where is my head?’

‘I was terrified about everything. I was terrified that I’d get the tone wrong, that I’d either be too ingratiating or too rude.

‘And I was terrified. He wouldn’t want to talk about any of the things we’d discussed, and he’d sort of blank the whole issue.’

There was relief when cameras rolled and Andrew did address his friendship with Epstein, their meets and allegations that he abused Virginia Roberts.

‘I remember just feeling this huge flood of relief. It’s like, ‘oh, thank God he’s not going to pretend none of this happened.’ .It was going to be the interview that he had promised me that we had talked about.’

Maitlis added: It felt like a trial, and in a way it was for both of us.’

McAlister was stunned by Andrew’s answers as she sat at the side of the room for the one to one.

‘I’m thinking things are not starting well for him. He’s used too many words. He hasn’t apologized yet. He hasn’t regretted the friendship, and he’s rambling.

‘Every answer is just going into me, and each time I can feel my blood pressure increasing because ‘oh my gosh, this is dynamite.’

She added: ‘I’m sitting there just going, I can’t believe he’d said that. It’s just like this tidal wave of bad answers.’

During the tense interaction over Giuffre’s ‘specific’ accusations including the prince ‘profusely sweating’, Andrew denied the claim on air.

The prince said a ‘problem’ with Ms Giuffre’s story was that a medical condition meant he could not have been sweating.

‘I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me to sweat,’ he said.

During the tense interaction over Giuffre’s (pictured) ‘specific’ accusations including the prince ‘profusely sweating’, Andrew denied the claim on air

Maitlis revealed that he had told the same story during their first meeting at Buckingham Palace.

Maitlis said: ‘He said, ‘should I tell you why I can’t sweat?’ And I said, yes. This was in the pre-interview and he said, do you know anything about adrenaline? And I said, genuinely. My face lit up. I said, ‘I’m fascinated by adrenaline. I’m an election night junkie and a long distance runner.

‘He said, well, the thing about adrenaline was after I was working in the Falklands, I lost the ability to sweat. And so actually what she says is completely not true, and I remember thinking, wow, if he says that, that’s slightly more detail than I’d looked for.’

Maitlis was staggered when he repeated the comments in the Newsnight filming.

After the interview Andrew and the Newsnight teams had differing emotions.

Maitlis reflected: ‘This is how I know that Prince Andrew was happy with the interview because he stayed chatting.’

McAlister urged her team to leave immediately fearing a lawyer would refuse the interview to be aired or remove the camera card footage.

They then jumped into a taxi back to the BBC offices, Maitlis admitted: ‘We crammed into a taxi and we were all kind of eyeballing each other. We sort of didn’t know whether to, I don’t know, sort of laugh or cry, and I just remember the intensity of that moment. We sort of couldn’t quite believe it. We were still pinching ourselves’

A& E describes the show as ‘this definitive Prince Andrew biography features the twists and turns of Palace intrigue, secret conversations, and looks at the Queen’s involvement in the repercussions following the BBC Newsnight revelations.’

Secrets of Prince Andrew’ will be available on demand and to stream on the A&E App and AETV.com. Secrets of Prince Andrew, which airs on A&E channel on Monday, August 21 at 8pm ET/PT.

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