Emily Maitlis' Honest Opinion On The Prince Andrew Interview

So I'd like to fast forward to the moment you received the call about your

interview

with Prince Andrew. What's the first thing you think about when you know you're the person accused of possibly the most important royal

interview

of our lives? It's four letters, yes, you know you can choose what they start with, but that's the first thing that goes through your head, so right as I'm talking to you now I can feel, I can feel my solar plexus and I can feel that you remember it. feeling, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not a one-time thing, it's every time someone comes to you with an interview, where were you when you heard about this one?

Well, it wasn't funny enough, it wasn't that they told me that way. because we had been part of the tender process from the beginning, we had had a brilliant team at Newsight and we had gone on, I think, two, possibly three visits to the palace and the first time we met him, his advisor, his sort of assistant and we left and we were like, "I think it went well, you know, when you can't tell, did that go well? I think it went well, was it good, did he like it?" you repeat each other's words like oh she liked it when you said that oh no but she liked the part where you said oh I think we're good anyway and then you're just playing the waiting game and to be Honestly, there are so many interviews that don't go well, we're always bidding, you know, you're bidding on everyone, you're bidding on presidents and popes and God, and you know, you just keep bidding basically, so it's never a surprise when something doesn't go well. because by then you had already had to realign yourself and move on to the next thing, so we did it and then there was a little pause and then they invited us back and by the time they invited us back, it was okay, this is pretty serious, So can I come in and ask what's going on in your head?

You know you said that word with the full letter is your immediate visceral response. Yeah, what are you telling yourself? I'm fighting two things, so sometimes fool your own head, right? And I do it quite often. If I'm afraid of something, I say oh no, no, I don't think it's very good, oh no, I don't think so, I don't think it's that. important oh oh, no, no, I don't think you really know, so instead of saying the amazing thing, you try to push it away and say, oh, I, no, I don't think that's what we do.

I think I would be very good at that. I don't think it's for us. You know, you find ways to excuse not doing it or not being a success. Well, I don't think anyone really expected you to. I know, so you're trying to put a little insulation between yourself and failure, aren't you? Because the alternative is you saying I'm going to do that and I could really screw it up, so instead of admitting it. to yourself, that's too big a thought all at once, you go, oh, I don't think anyone would, uh, no, I don't think we'd really miss that, you know, and and, the truth is, no one else would we would have had it. no one would know, so you always have to hide behind no one, no one knows until you actually do it, but you're throbbing because you're thinking this could be the biggest thing I've ever done in my life, just, I mean, professionally, journalistically.

This could be the biggest thing I've ever done and if it goes wrong it'll be the worst thing I've ever done and you never think this is going to be the best thing I've ever done because it's not, that's not how I'm wired. right, I think this has all the potential IAL to be a car accident, which it was, but not necessarily in the way, yeah, I was thinking and yeah, I think you try to protect yourself from fear by saying, oh, you know, a lot of things. Things are happening, so that's the kind of neurological feeling it is: I'm very nervous, I'm very afraid of this and that's when you need a brilliant team around you because your team is the person who says, of course, you're going to hit. out of the park, of course, it's going to be brilliant and we're going to get there right and it's never going to be you alone, it's the brilliant cameramen, it's the brilliant lighting, it's the brilliant sound, it's the person playing with you all over the world.

On the right of the table, who is the

prince

who tests you and I can

honest

ly tell you that my editor, Esm Ren, played that role and was much tougher. I mean, at the end of our hour, I was Terri. You push me in a really hurtful, incisive way that left me stuttering and that's actually what's next, isn't it? It's the preparation that you want to be so clear and learn it in a fun way, it's a strange word, but you know what I mean, you want to know how you knew what to learn, although what the focus of your research was.

I looked at all the research I could find, so I treated it like a school project, spell the name correctly. read everything that has been written watch every documentary watch and follow all the different splits in the trees who is that person who is Stephanopoulos who is who was at the party what were they doing who is Virginia G freay how what is her connection to him what is your connection with them, what is the date? Why does it matter that this was Florida and not New York? What is the difference between jurisdiction in a Florida court and what you know on a small island in St.

James? So are you trying to isolate yourself from errors again? to be perfect, I couldn't, I couldn't tell you those dates now, but if you had asked me that, I would have done it as a brain candidate, you know, contestant, I would have said no, it was 2017, not 2008, you know? that was the 18th birthday not the 21st birthday that was the time it went there sorry no no I'm interested because I love the depth of research you do but before we start do you have a goal for that interview? I had to define what success would be for you.

It's actually a really simple goal, which is that you want to get the most out of your interview and your interviewee. It's as simple as that, so if I'm doing an interview that leaves people. confused, I've failed well and if I'm doing an interview that's interrupted or interrupted someone or I haven't gotten to the bottom of something, I've failed and then the way we prepared for it was like I think you know in Lego like when you just You're doing a freestyle with Lego, you build your blocks, if I'm making a house, you put the foundation in place, you don't just build a tower, right, oh, I'm just going to follow this thing that I've learned until it falls on you see first question second question third question fourth where is the bridge between that?

How am I building on that? So there's a series if you go back and watch the interview. I was just trying to confirm things, are you too? go there, you went to the Manhattan house, yes I did, you went to the island, yes I did, were you on the plane? Yes, I did, because if at some point the answer is no, then 10 questions that you have don't work, so if he had suddenly told me that I was never in the Manhattan house, I was never in the Epstein House, suddenly I'm thinking, oh damn, I have to rethink that and you have to recalibrate it real quick, so part of in an interview is you explaining to the audience what you're doing I'm just checking that I've got my facts right that's I'm checking that I've got my facts right right so you did it that's like that yeah then I think it was 2018, you knew whatever and you're building, you're building the structure of the narrative that everyone understands, so all of that is not difficult, but it is slow and there were certain points of the interview in which I thought, oh, that's interesting, oh God, I didn't expect you to know that they just used little phrases that told a whole story in themselves, like for example, like when he said he had been too honorable, right? was one of the phrases he used.

I told him why didn't you tell Epstein after he was convicted of pedophilia that you couldn't maintain a friendship with him and he said I went to his house, maybe that was wrong. but maybe I was too honorable and thought, oh, that's going to hit a really strange note, right, I'm just not sure it's going to sound like he wants it to sound, and that was one point and then there was another point. where he talked about um, I said, didn't you throw a party? You know Gillan Maxwell and he said no and I thought, "Oh my God, I'm at the wrong CU." He had my notes, I checked them and he had done everything.

At the investigation I thought no, my investigation is falling apart and then he looked up and it was, it was a simple weekend of shooting and that was the point I thought we were at, but I get it, we're in different kinds of visions. of reality. here because he meant that for him a party is 500 people, you know, it's a dance and the weekend of simple filming was 16 people staying in a country house, he won't go see them, is he right? , it's just I mean, it's and I. The problem is that I didn't fully understand it.

I understood the fact that within the context of him that was totally different, right, but that doesn't mean that when I said there was a party I was wrong, it just meant that you know. For me, a house party with 20 people is a big deal. For him, if it's less than five, less than 500, that's not a party, so it was kind of a recalibration of understanding that, genuinely, from his own position, it's known from yours. obviously, you know, it glorified a very different childhood, he dealt with things very differently, so there were those moments where I had to modify my brain a little bit and understand that he was, he thought he was, you know he was clarifying and he was, but there were just these strange turns of phrase, yeah