Prince Andrew’s interview with Newsnight was a PR disaster for him and a triumph for the journalists involved. As a star-studded film about the backstory comes out, Sarah Ditum speaks to the women who made it happen
PRINCE ANDREW’S 2019 INTERVIEW WITH NEWSNIGHT REMAINS ONE OF the most momentous hours of TV ever broadcast. Under Emily Maitlis’s forensic questioning, he attempted to explain away his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking. In the court of public opinion, it was a disaster. The Prince’s denials were overshadowed by an alibi involving ‘Pizza Express in Woking’ and the claim that he was incapable of sweating.
For Prince Andrew, this was a life-changing event. Within 24 hours of the broadcast, he had stepped down from his public duties and, soon after, he resigned the use of his military and royal titles. In 2022, he reached a settlement with Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein who accused Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. (The Prince denies any wrongdoing, and has said in a statement that he ‘regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others’.)
It was also life-changing for Sam McAlister, albeit in a more positive way. As a producer on Newsnight, and the ‘booker’ who brokered the astonishing encounter, the Prince Andrew interview thrust the former criminal barrister to a level of recognition that is rare for someone who works behind the scenes in TV. After the episode was broadcast, the Newsnight editor Esme Wren tweeted: ‘Full credit to our indefatigable interview producer @SamMcAlister1 for securing this world exclusive.’
Now, a new movie tells the full story behind the story. Scoop – which is based on the book McAlister wrote, and stars Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis, a near-unrecognisable Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew and Billie Piper as McAlister herself – shows how she and the Newsnight team pulled off the journalistic equivalent of a milliondollar heist, and held Prince Andrew to public account for his association with Epstein and his own alleged misdeeds.
Having seen the film, I do a double take when I meet McAlister in the bar of a lavishly kitsch Soho hotel. She looks exactly like her character, as played by Piper: a wide smile and a champagne fizz of blonde curls, dressed in head-to-toe black with a sprinkle of designer bling. (In my defence, I’m not the only one to be confounded by the resemblance: The Daily Mail published a picture of McAlister and her boyfriend on-set, and captioned it as Billie Piper with ‘unknown male actor’.)
How, I ask, did she get a member of the R
