WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Scoop
The ending of Netflix’s Scoop only reveals part of the story when it comes to the downfall of Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) following his disastrous Newsnight review. Based on the book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister, the new Netflix movie tells the story of how the current affairs program secured an exclusive sit-down with Prince Andrew to discuss his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Told predominantly from the perspective of interview booker Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), Scoop depicts the various meetings between McAlister and Buckingham Palace in the lead-up to the recording.
Scoop‘s impressive cast do a great job of embodying the key figures involved in securing the exclusive interview with Prince Andrew. By covering the lead-up, the recording, and the aftermath, Scoop reveals how Prince Andrew’s hubris ultimately led to his downfall and removal from royal duties. Five years after the interview aired, Prince Andrew is no longer a serving member of the Royal Family, with many of Andrew’s privileges revoked by King Charles III, including access to the very rooms in Buckingham Palace where Scoop takes place.
Rather than putting distance between Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, the interview had the opposite effect. In a 2023 documentary called Secrets of Prince Andrew, Emily Maitlis said (via Vanity Fair) that “Whenever the BBC and the royals meet, someone always gets fired, I didn’t expect it to be him.” As depicted in Scoop‘s closing moments, the Duke of York announced that he was suspending his public duties “for the forseeable future” on November 20th, 2019, four days after the interview aired. Four days after that, it was confirmed that the Prince would step aside from all 230 of his patronages.
Despite Prince Andrew’s insistence that he would cooperate with the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking offenses, the Duke of York was accused of “zero co-operation” in early 2020. In August 2021, Reuters quoted a source that said Prince Andrew was a “person of interest” in the Epstein and Maxwell investigation. Earlier that same month, Virginia Giuffre – the teenager in the photograph with Andrew – filed a civil case against him. That case was eventually settled out of court in 2022, with Prince Andrew agreeing to pay a reported sum of $16.3 million to Giuffre and her charity, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim.
In 2020, the BBC’s Head of News Fran Unsworth announced wide-reaching budget cuts to the corporation’s news teams, and an estimated 450 job losses. For dramatic purposes, Scoop brings the threat to the BBC’s news ahead to 2019, to hammer home the importance of good journalism. It means that Scoop can end with a stirring speech from Esme Wren (Romola Garai) about holding the powerful to account. While there’s some creative license here, it’s true that Newsnight‘s Prince Andrew interview was an enormous success for the BBC.
Prince Andrew & the Epstein Scandal: The Newsnight Interview was watched by 1.7 million viewers when it broadcast on BBC2 on Saturday, November 16th, 2019. These were record-breaking ratings for Newsnight, and it doesn’t even begin to cover the global impact of the interview. As seen in Scoop, the interview went viral on social media, with Prince Andrew’s bizarre claims about his inability to sweat, and his reference to the Pizza Express restaurant chain generating countless satirical memes.
The scene where Sam sees the interview blown up on to the screens at Piccadilly Circus is pure invention, given that they’re handed over to big brands for advertising. However, it’s creative shorthand to get across how Prince Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview went global. As well as being a ratings success the Newsnight interview also won several prizes at the 2020 Royal Television Society Journalism Awards:
When Prince Andrew stepped down from public life, his private secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) was told she would also have to leave her job. Although never confirmed publicly by Buckingham Palace, it’s widely suggested by the tabloid press that Amanda Thirsk was “sacked” for convincing Prince Andrew to do the Newsnight interview. In Scoop, Thirsk is presented as a fairly naive figure, who seems in thrall to to the Duke of York. The moment in which Amanda tells Andrew to just be himself is evidence that the Prince’s private secretary’s view of his character is in sharp contrast to the perception of others.
Scoop suggests that Amanda Thirsk genuinely believed that Prince Andrew’s winning personality and charisma would shine under the tough questioning of Emily Maitlis. This perception is largely backed up by those who were there, including the real-life Sam McAlister. The Newsnight interview booker told Joe Marler’s Things People Do that someone at the Palace – Thirsk in Scoop‘s version of events – told her that she thought Prince Andrew was “marvelous” in his interview. As seen in the film, Thirsk was repeatedly advised against doing the interview, but pushed ahead anyway, ultimately losing her job in the aftermath.
As it’s based on Sam McAlister’s telling of events, Scoop doesn’t go beyond Prince Andrew’s office, making it hard to discern exactly how Queen Elizabeth II and Buckingham Palace felt about the Newsnight interview. Though Scoop bears some resemblance to The Crown, the Queen is never featured on screen, and is generally referred to as “Mummy” by Prince Andrew. Seeking permission from his mother, Andrew simply tells Amanda that she trusts his judgment. It’s an odd moment, considering that Prince Andrew’s judgment is exactly what got him into trouble in the first place.
Throughout Scoop, the BBC are waiting for Buckingham Palace to prevent the interview from happening, and yet the Royal edict never comes. It’s entirely possible that Andrew’s position as the Queen’s favorite son blinded the Monarch to the damaging repercussions of the interview. However, the Queen’s duty was also to protect the public image of the Royal Family, which, if swift action had not been taken, could have been irreparably damaged by the fallout from Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview.
Sam McAlister doggedly pursued an interview opportunity with Prince Andrew even before Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges. By building a relationship with Amanda Thirsk, Sam was able to convince her that the Prince didn’t need a sympathetic interviewer, he needed a chance to speak for himself. There are some excruciating scenes throughout Scoop that depict Prince Andrew incapable of reading the room as his mouth gets the better of him. One of the most jaw-dropping moments in Scoop is when he jokes about his links to notorious sex offender Jimmy Savile during a meeting with Sam and Emily.
Scoop suggests that Sam, alongside Emily Maitlis’ whippet Moody, inspired the journalist’s approach to interviewing Prince Andrew. Initially pursuing a more combative approach, Emily is encouraged to give Prince Andrew more room to talk. As Sam explains, men like the Duke of York “like to be heard“, which inspires Emily’s long pauses during the Newsnight interview. These long pauses allow Andrew to keep talking, getting himself tied in tighter and tighter knots as he struggles to defend his indefensible friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a crucial moment during the rehearsal scenes in Scoop, Sam asks Emily what she wants to gain from her interview with Prince Andrew. Surprisingly, Emily gives Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky as an answer to Sam’s question. When Esme points out that Clinton and Lewinsky’s affair was consensual, unlike the abuses committed by Epstein, Maitlis highlights that there was still an abuse of power in the White House. The Newsnight journalist did interview former US President Bill Clinton, and believed that she let him off the hook, a story that the real-life Emily Maitlis expands upon in her 2019 memoir Airhead.
Bill Clinton was another notable name in the Jeffrey Epstein files (via BBC), so the name-drop in Scoop is a pointed one. By directly confronting Prince Andrew about his links to Jeffrey Epstein and the Duke’s alleged sexual misconduct with Virginia Giuffre when she was a minor, Scoop suggests that Emily Maitlis is atoning for her too-sympathetic Clinton interview. Maitlis’ motivation is a powerful one, that ties into Scoop‘s wider story about the importance of journalists holding powerful men to account for their abuses.
Scoop is streaming now on Netflix