Journalist Emily Maitlis has said she “fled to the toilet” before her interview with the Duke of York to tell herself “don’t pull your punches”. The 54-year-old former BBC reporter said it had been “the stuff of dreams” to be played by Gillian Anderson and Ruth Wilson in dramatisations of the interview, in Netflix film Scoop and BBC drama series A Very Royal Scandal respectively. She told Good Housekeeping that despite being proud of her work, there was “something very disturbing” about seeing the impact of the interview play out.
Maitlis said: “I remember shaking [Andrew’s] hand, and then I excused myself and fled to the toilet. The interview saw Andrew quizzed on his relationship to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Chris Jackson/PA) “I was holding the handbasin at one point and just saying to myself, ‘right, what is this interview about? Find the focus, find the point of the interview’. “I was sort of lecturing myself: ‘don’t interrupt, don’t be rude, don’t forget to be courteous in your address – but also don’t pull your punches in the questions’.
” The interview saw Maitlis quiz Andrew on his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and saw him deny having sex with then 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, saying he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the day it was alleged to have happened. Following the interview, the duke paid a financial settlement to Giuffre, formally ending a US civil case brought against hi.
