Stuart Heritage at Air Mail: f you’re stuck for something to watch this weekend, you may want to consider Scoop, Netflix’s attempt to dramatize the infamous 2019 Newsnight interview between Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew. This isn’t because the film is good—we’ll get to that shortly—but because, God, who wouldn’t want to relive the infamous 2019 Newsnight interview between Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew?
You remember the exchange, surely, for it represented perhaps the last moment of pure fun that humanity experienced before the pandemic hit. Dogged by rumors of a close association with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and accused of sexual assault by an under-age girl, Prince Andrew attempted to set the record straight with the interview. However, it went so badly that four days after it aired, Prince Andrew effectively found himself being fired from the royal family by his own mother.
Prince Andrew’s performance was catastrophically inept, the sort of mangled collision you only get to witness when a lifetime of unearned privilege crashes into a wall of unblinking logic. Essentially, we got to witness an adult man (who, let’s not forget, reportedly threw tantrums whenever maids would display his 72 teddy bears in the wrong order) backhandedly failing to bluff and charm his way out of several credible accusations of wrongdoing.
The interview was a greatest-hits compilation of bad P.R. Reports of Prince Andrew sweatily dancing at Tramp were incorrect, he said, because an “adrenaline overdose” during the Falklands War left him medically unable to sweat. He offered no sympathy for any of Epstein’s victims, instead remarking, “If you’re a man, it is a positive act to have sex with somebody.” Indeed, he professed that his only flaw throughout his dealings with Epstein was his habit of being “too honorable.”
More here.
