Prince Andrew's BBC Interview Producer Recalls 'Curveball Moment' Involving Another Royal (Exclusive)
Sam McAlister tells PEOPLE about the Duke of York bringing an unexpected family member to a meeting ahead of his interview surrounding his connection to Jeffrey Epstein
JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty
Prince Andrew attends Easter church on March 31, 2024Prince Andrew brought an unexpected royal family member to a meeting ahead of his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview surrounding his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — in what producer Sam McAlister tells PEOPLE was the "curveball of curveballs."
As Scoop, recounting how the BBC secured the interview that led the Duke of York to step back from public life as a royal, premieres on Netflix, the former BBC producer takes PEOPLE inside the Buckingham Palace meeting ahead of the sit-down with journalist Emily Maitlis.
"That meeting was just extraordinary, because obviously, you prep so much for a meeting of this importance, in Buckingham Palace, negotiating for an interview that was now the most sought-after conversation in journalism," says McAlister. "And there was a real curveball moment."
She continues, "We had been going to meet Prince Andrew and his chief of staff, Amanda Thirsk, played by Keeley Hawes in our movie, and then curveball of curveballs, he brought someone with him. Now, I'm thinking it's going to be a lawyer or a comms person and things are going to be over. But in fact, it was his daughter, Princess Beatrice."
"So, to have prepared to do this incredibly important negotiation and then have to do it on these sensitive and difficult subjects in front of his young daughter really was taking an already extraordinary experience to the next level," McAlister recalls. "Nothing prepares you for a professional experience like that. And even though it was something that I like to think I was pretty adept at, we really were all out of our depth in Buckingham Palace, sitting just across from him and his daughter."
Related: 7 Biggest Bombshells from Prince Andrew's 'No Holds Barred' Interview About Jeffrey Epstein
Queen Elizabeth's son, now 64, spoke to Maitlis in the South Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace on November 14, 2019, to discuss his links to Epstein for the first time and allegations that he had sex with Virginia Guiffre when she was 17.
During the interview, Prince Andrew refuted Giuffre’s claim that he danced with her at a London nightclub before allegedly having sex because he had "taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at I suppose sort of four or five in the afternoon. And then because the Duchess [his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson] was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there. I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy so, therefore, I was at home."
McAlister tells PEOPLE, "It was one of those amazing things, that usually as a producer, what happens is you spend time talking to somebody before the cameras start rolling and they're sensational, and the second the cameras come on, it becomes very bland. This was the one time that didn't happen."
"The experience for me was like things just kept getting higher and higher in terms of the stakes, and it was just extraordinary to hear all of that on camera. Because we'd heard some of it in private in a small room in Buckingham Palace a couple of days earlier, but to hear him say it for the world to see was the most shocking part of all, in a sense," she continues. "It was unimaginable, some of the answers that he gave in public. And, of course, the public reaction told us that the public did not think that those answers were credible or good."
Prince Andrew has denied any wrongdoing and said he continued to "unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein," who died in prison while awaiting federal sex trafficking charges in August 2019.
Shortly after the interview aired, the Duke of York announced he would "step back from public duties for the foreseeable future."
"It has become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work and the valuable work going on in the many organizations and charities that I am proud to support," he said.
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Prince Andrew was later stripped of his military titles and patronages by the late Queen in January 2022 amid Giuffre's civil sexual assault lawsuit against the royal. An out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount was reached the following month.
Scoop is now streaming on Netflix.
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