Prince Andrew’s excruciating BBC interview with Emily Maitlis was so explosive that one television performance is apparently not enough.
Four years after the embattled royal family’s criticism on Newsnight over his friendship with the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, two of the world’s biggest streaming titans are going head-to-head with their own dramatizations of the so-called ‘scoop of the decade’. ‘.
In one corner we have the Netflix film Scoop, based on a book written by Sam McAlister, the former BBC production journalist who secured the interview. In Amazon Prime’s other series A Very Royal Scandal, which Maitlis executive produces.
Since even the most ardent royal watcher is unlikely to watch both, competition between the dramas is fierce. Especially since McAlister and Maitlis are said to be ‘arch enemies’ after the interviewer was accused of ignoring the crucial contribution her producer made in mediating the prince’s interview.
At the time, Prince Andrew’s appearance sparked royal commentators, with one describing it as ‘a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami and a level-high nuclear explosion’ – following his increasingly bizarre responses.
Prince Andrew’s excruciating BBC interview with Emily Maitlis was so explosive that one television performance is apparently not enough
In one corner we have the Netflix film Scoop, starring Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis
In Amazon Prime’s other series A Very Royal Scandal, in which Ruth Wilson plays the former BBC journalist. Maitlis himself is an executive producer of the Amazon Prime series
Who can forget his claim that he was incapable of sweating and that he could not have had an inappropriate relationship with then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre because he was at Pizza Express in Woking, Surrey on the night in question?
And it looks like the stars are lining up to take part in the highly anticipated adaptations. Since money is no object for both streaming giants, they have been competing to create the ultimate A-list cast. Friends of McAlister have said, “She definitely thinks the Scoop actors and actresses are the better ones. She literally has to pinch herself’.
McAlister is “over the moon” to have signed The Crown’s Gillian Anderson to play Maitlis and, according to friends, “so, so, so excited” to have Billie Piper playing her. Rufus Sewell plays Prince Andrew, while Keeley Hawes stars as Andrew’s then-private secretary, Amanda Thirsk.
Meanwhile, Emily Maitlis was said to be ‘excited’ last week to unveil Hollywood actor Michael Sheen as the prince for A Very Royal Scandal. Ruth Wilson, a Golden Globe winner for drama The Affair, will take on the role of Maitlis and The Thick Of It’s Joanna Scanlan will play Thirsk.
As for the scripts, McAlister says British playwright and screenwriter Peter Moffat is writing her one-part drama – with Philip Martin, who worked on seven episodes of The Crown in 2017, as director.
Maitlis has gone one step further for her three-part series, signing Bafta-nominated director Julian Jarrol, who not only helmed The Crown but also worked on Sky Atlantic’s drama This England, which told the story of Boris and Carrie Johnson during the pandemic.
Ultimately, however, it won’t be the cast and crew who dictate the success of either drama, but who get it to the small screen first. And it looks like Netflix and McAlister are winning the race to broadcast. While there’s no official date for when either drama will air, Scoop has finished filming, while A Very Royal Scandal is supposedly not even halfway through.
An insider told the Mail: ‘This was always going to be a race against time, except Sam [McAlister] was the first to get there and she certainly has a head start of several months at the moment.’
Emily Maitlis said to be ‘excited’ to unveil Hollywood actor Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew for A Very Royal Scandal
Sam McAlister, the former BBC production journalist who secured the interview, said the actors were better in Scoop. Rufus Sewell plays Prince Andrew in the Netflix series
Ruth Wilson was spotted on set in London with a blonde bob, similar to the hairstyle Maitlis had prior to the infamous interview
McAlister published her book Scoops: Behind The Scenes Of The BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews in July 2022 – while the Netflix deal was announced last autumn. Filming began earlier this year, with set photos released in February.
Maitlis’ A Very Royal Scandal was first discussed in the summer of 2022 – with Amazon only confirming their involvement last week.
Those on Team Netflix are said to have been ‘amused’ at how angry the former BBC star was said to have been after seeing her former colleague, McAlister, racing for her project. “It must really piss Emily off that the production girl beat her to it,” someone said. “Not only did she have to see all the photos from the shoot, but there is now no doubt that Scoop will be released first.”
And there’s no doubt that the rivalry between the women is “absolutely real.” While at the BBC, McAlister reportedly spent months building a relationship with private secretary Amanda Thirsk before holding a series of meetings with her at Buckingham Palace.
Despite being a high flyer, she was paid a fraction of the £325,000 annual salary that Maitlis earned on the show. So when Maitlis and Newsnight editor Esme Wren appeared on the cover of the Radio Times in July 2020 and failed to mention McAlister’s crucial role in the interview, McAlister was less than pleased.
In the piece, Wren said: “We have delivered a quite exceptional piece of journalism.”
McAlister received no credit despite initiating negotiations and presiding over the meeting between Newsnight bosses and Thirsk, the prince and his daughter Beatrice.
In her book about the first time she met Andrew, co-authored with Maitlis and Newsnight deputy editor Stewart Maclean, McAlister wrote: ‘I hadn’t slept a wink all weekend. I had prepared, read and talked to people who had met Prince Andrew to gauge how to approach him. Then I had rehearsed possible questions in my head, thought about what the sticking points would be, and played every possible calibration and option.”
Speaking about how she felt erased from the story, a source said: “Sam tried to laugh about it. It seemed very baffling that two women would not mention another, much younger woman in an interview where they were talking about how the interview came about.”
McAlister has now left the BBC, where some of her former colleagues resent her putting herself at the center of the whole affair.
One can only imagine their anger as Scoop triumphs and McAlister gets the sweetest revenge.