A Very Royal Scandal laid bare Prince Andrew's disgusting question to Emily Maitlis, which will leave viewers horrified. The journalist, 54, interviewed the disgraced royal in 2019 for BBC ’s Newsnight, and the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series A Very Royal Scandal painstakingly retells the excruciating interview. Ruth Wilson stars as Emily, while Michael Sheen portrays Andrew, and in scenes in the first episode, it is revealed that the former Duke of York asked the journalist a disturbing question ahead of their discussion.
Emily serves as an executive producer on the series, and details of the build-up to the interview have been laid bare, with one incident revealed in the first episode. In one scene, Emily said that before Andrew agreed to the interview, he asked the esteemed presenter if she had ever been abused. The Newsnight team attended a meeting with the prince, as well as his daughter Princess Beatrice and his private secretary Amanda Thirsk, and as they negotiated the terms of the interview, Andrew leans forward and asks a disturbing question.
Speaking to Emily and two members of her team, he says: “Have any of you ever been victims of abuse?” The Newsnight employees, who are visibly shaken in the scene, insist they haven’t been abused, but Emily freezes momentarily, before quickly replying: “No.” The royal pushes on, and asks: “Nothing in your life?” as the journalist brusquely replies: “Nothing that bares comparison.” His private secretary revealed that Andrew asked the question in order to understand the journalist wouldn’t have her judgement clouded.
“So you're judgement wouldn't be coloured by anything at all?” she asks, as Emily states: “Not at all.” Later in the episode, the question begins to haunt Emily, as she tells her husband what Andrew had asked during their pre-interview talk. “You know at the end of my meeting with Prince Andrew he asked me if I had ever been the victim of abuse? It felt horrible.
” Her husband Mark asked what she had told him, as Emily reveals she was the victim of a stalker for 27 years. “Well nothing, having a stalker is not remotely comparable and I don't want to talk about it.” The journalist was hounded by Edward Vines for almost three decades after they first met at Cambridge University in the 1990s.
He bombarded her with letters and in 2022, he was jailed for eight years after writing a series of letters from prison declaring his “unrequited love” for her. In March last year, he was imprisoned for nine months after attempting to contact Emily’s mother, and insisted he would continue writing letters to the journalist until she apologised for allegedly “snubbing” him at university. Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
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