Emily Maitlis discusses the Prince Andrew scoop

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance app. behind the story. This is the reality behind the headlines. But I think the only way to really know what happened in that interview and in the build up to that interview is to hear from the person that conducted it. And recently we were lucky enough to interview Emily about her conversation with Prince Andrew. And so I thought now would be a good time to share with you a taster of what we discussed with Emily. So after a few messages from our partners, we're going to play you an extract from our conversation. And of course, you can find a full episode in our podcast feed, or you can watch the whole thing over on the High Performance app right now.

1:06Anyway, Emily Maitlis with what really happened with the Prince Andrew interview comes next.

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2:58So I'd like to fast forward to the moment you got the call about your interview with Prince Andrew. What's the first thing you think about when you know that you're the person being charged with arguably the most important royal interview in our lifetimes? It's four letters. Yeah. You know, you can choose what it starts with, but that's the first thing that goes through your head. So just as I'm talking to you now, I can feel my solar plexus and I can feel... Can you remember that feeling? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not a one-off. It's every time somebody comes to you with, you know, an interview.

3:44Where were you then when you found out about this one? Well, it wasn't, funny enough, it wasn't that I was told in that way because we had been part of the bidding process. So right from the very beginning, we had a brilliant sort of team at Newsnight and we had gone for, I think, two, possibly three visits to the palace. and the first time we'd met his advisor, his sort of assistant, and we kind of came out and we were like, I think that went well. You know, when you can't quite tell, you're like, did that go well? I think it went well. Was it all right? Does she like it? And you replay each other's words like, oh, she liked it when you said that.

4:24Oh, no, but she liked the bit where you said, oh, I think, are we okay? Anyway, and then you're just playing a waiting game. And to be honest, there are so many interviews that don't come off, right? We're always bidding. Bid for everyone. You bid for presidents and popes and God. You just keep bidding, basically. And so it's never a surprise when something doesn't come off because by then you've just had to realign and move on to the next thing. And so we kind of did it. And then there was a little pause. And then we got invited back. And at the point where we were invited back, I was like, okay, this is quite serious.

5:03yes so can I just jump in there and ask what's going on in your head you know you said that four letter word is your immediate gut response yeah what are you telling yourself um I'm fighting two things so sometimes you deceive your own head right and I do it quite often if I'm scared of something I go oh no I don't I don't think it'd be very good oh no I don't think I don't think it's that important oh oh I don't know I don't think it'll really work you know so instead of saying how amazing you try and push it away and you go oh I know I don't think it's what we do I don't think I'd be very good at it I don't think that's for us you know you find ways of sort of excusing the not doing it or the it not being a success oh well I don't think anyone was really expecting that you know so you you're trying to put a little bit of insulation between you and failure, aren't you?

5:58Because the alternative is that you say, I'm going to do that and I might screw it up, right? So instead of admitting that to yourself, which is too big a thought in one go, you go, oh, I don't think anyone would, no, I don't think we'd really miss that, you know. And the truth is, no one, if we hadn't got it, no one would know. So you've always got that to hide behind. No one knows, right, until you actually do it. But you're palpitating because you are thinking, this could be the biggest thing I ever do. Quite simply. I mean, professionally, journalistically, this could be the biggest thing I ever do.

6:42And if it goes wrong, it will be the worst thing I ever do. And you never think, this will be the best thing I ever do, because that's not i don't that's not how i'm wired right i think this has all the potential to be a car crash which it was but not not necessarily in the way yeah i was sort of thinking and so yes i think you try and protect yourself from the fear by saying oh you know lots of things going on so that's the sort of neurological feeling which is I'm really nervous I'm really scared 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 knock it out the park of course it's going to be brilliant and we're going to get to that place right and it's never you on your own it's brilliant camera people it's brilliant lighting it's brilliant sound it's the person who is role-playing with you across the table, right?

7:46Who is being the prince, who is putting you through your paces. And I can honestly tell you that my editor, Esme Wren, played that role and she was way tougher. I mean, I was terrified of her by the end of our hour because she would push back at me in a really sort of hurtful, incisive way that left me sort of stuttering. And actually, that's the next thing, isn't it it's it's preparation you want to be so clear and and sort of just learn it in a funny way it's a weird word but you know what i mean you want to know how did you know what to learn though like what was the focus of your i went through every bit of research i could find so i treated it like a school project right type in the name read everything that has been written watch every documentary, go and follow all the different splits on the trees.

8:44Who's that person? Who's Stephanopoulos? Who's that? Who was at the party? What were they doing? Who's Virginia Giuffre? What's her connection to him? What's their connection to them? What's the date? Why does it matter that that was Florida, not New York? What's the difference between the jurisdiction in a Florida court versus, you know, a little St. James Island? So you are trying to, again, insulate yourself from mistakes, right? I wanted to be word perfect. I couldn't tell you those dates now, but if you'd asked me that, I would have done it like a mastermind candidate, you know, contestant.

9:17I would have said, no, that was 2017, not 2008, you know, or that was the 18th birthday, not the 21st birthday. That was the time he went there. Sorry. No, no, I'm interested because I love the depth of research you do. But before you start that, do you have an objective for that interview? If you had to define what success would be for you it's a really simple objective actually which is that you want to get the most out of your interview and out of your interviewee right it's as simple as that so if i'm doing an interview that leaves people confused i've failed right and if i'm doing an interview which has interrupted or cut somebody short or not got to the bottom of something, I failed.

10:10And so the way we prepared for it was, I sort of think, you know, in Lego, like when you're just freestyling Lego, you build your blocks. If I'm making a house, you get your foundations in place. You don't just build one tower up, right? Oh, I'm just going to follow this one thing I've learned until it topples over. You go, first question, second question, third question, fourth, where's the bridge between that one? How am I building on that? And so there's a series. If you go back and look at the interview, I was just trying to get things confirmed. So did you go there? Did you go to the Manhattan house?

10:50Yes, I did. Did you go to the island? Yes, I did. Were you on the jet? Yes, I did. Because if at any point the answer's no, then 10 questions you've got don't work. So if he'd suddenly said to me, I was never in the house in Manhattan, I was never in the Epstein house, suddenly I'm thinking, oh, blimey, I've got to rethink that. And you've got to recalibrate really quickly. So part of an interview is you explaining to the audience what you're doing. I'm just checking that I've got my facts right on that. I'm checking I've got my facts right on that. then you did that is that right yes then I think it was 2018 you did you know whatever it is and you're building you're you're building the structure of the narrative that everyone understands so all that is not it's not difficult stuff but it is it's slow and there were certain points in the interview where I thought oh that's interesting oh gosh I wasn't expecting that you know just little phrases that were used which told a whole story in themselves like what for example like when he said he'd been too honorable right that was one of the phrases he used i said why didn't you tell epstein after he was you know convicted of of you know pedophilia that you He couldn't maintain a friendship with him.

12:18And he said, I went to his house. Maybe that was wrong, but maybe I was too honorable. And I just thought, oh, that's going to strike a really weird note, right? It's just, I'm not sure that's going to sound how he wants it to sound. And so that was one. And then there was another point where he talked about, I said, didn't you hold a party for, you know, Gilliam Maxwell? And he went, no. And I thought, oh, my God, I've got this wrong because I had my notes and I'd checked and I'd done all the research. I was like, no, my research is crumbling. And then he looked up and he went, it was a straightforward shooting weekend.

13:00And that was the point where I just thought, we're, but I get it. We're on different sort of visions of reality here because he meant, like for him, a party is 500 people. You know, it's a ball. And the straightforward shooting weekend was kind of 16 people staying in a country house. He's not going to watch in Llamas, is he? Right. It's just, I mean, it's, and the trouble is, I'm not, I totally got it. I got the fact that within his context, that was totally different, right? But it didn't mean that when I'd said there was a party, I was wrong. It just meant that, you know, for me, a house party with 20 people is quite a big deal, right?

13:52For him, if it's less than 500, fewer than 500, that's not a party. And so it was just sort of recalibrating, kind of understanding that genuinely from his own position, you know, from his own, obviously, you know, exalted, very different childhood, he came at things very differently. And so there were just those moments where I had to sort of just tweak my brain a bit and understand that he was, he thought he was, you know, he was clarifying. And he was, but there were just these odd turns of phrase. Yeah. So that's Emily Maitlis on High Performance, a small taster of what we discussed when she joined us to talk about her conversation with Prince Andrew, arguably one of the most famous royal interviews of the last few years.

14:38You can hear the full conversation. It's episode 207, wherever you get your podcasts from. Of course, you can also watch the whole thing on the High Performance app as well, which is free to download. but of course thank you very much for listening thank you to the fact that with high performance we get right to the heart of the story and you can trust what you're hearing thanks for joining us see you soon

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