A friend of Prince Andrew’s has told the Daily Beast that he is “depressed” ahead of a new three-part film, A Very Royal Scandal, about his downfall due to stream on Amazon from Thursday this week.
The film—the second dramatization of the infamous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview which sealed Andrew’s royal downfall—features Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis, the BBC Newsnight anchor whom Andrew (played by Michael Sheen) told he couldn’t have assaulted Jeffrey Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre because he was at a children’s party in a branch of restaurant chain Pizza Express. Andrew also insisted he was medically unable to sweat.
Andrew’s friend told the Daily Beast: “He is depressed and Sarah and the kids are anxious about this show. You have to remember that he absolutely insists he has no memory of ever meeting Giuffre and denies having sex with her. He has never been found guilty of anything. He knows he f—ed up and he has taken his punishment. He has given up his HRH, his military titles, his role in public life without complaint. I think he sometimes just wonders how long the punishment will go on for.”
On the subject of why his children were anxious, the friend said: “Put yourself in their shoes. This film is going to traduce their father and if they say anything to defend him it will just make it worse.”
A friend of Princess Beatrice told The Daily Beast: “There is nothing good you can say about it all. It’s ghastly for all of them. The girls are just getting on with their lives.”
However, a former Buckingham Palace staffer who previously worked for Andrew said that current and former palace employees who had to “put up with Andrew’s petulant, rude and inconsiderate behavior” when he was a working royal were “thrilled and brimming with schadenfreude” at reports suggesting Andrew will be portrayed as a foul-mouthed, disrespectful bully.
Referring to the fact that Andrew’s downfall has already been the subject of one show, Scoop!—which was screened by Netflix and had Rufus Sewell in the Andrew role—the former staffer added, “Some people thought he got off lightly last time but it seems Amazon have nailed him this time round.”
Some previews of the three-part series have already been published after the first episode was screened to journalists in London at the weekend.
Critics noted that Sheen depicts Andrew as rude, aggressive, and defensive. The portrayal reportedly emphasizes Andrew’s lack of self-awareness about the gravity of the situation and his misguided attempts to defend himself.
Prince Andrew, December 25, 2022.
Toby Melville/Reuters
One review said Andrew comes across as “pompous, deluded and deeply unpleasant… simultaneously arrogant and weak.”
The first words he says in the show are reportedly a curt “f— off” in the direction of a footman.
Wilson told the Evening Standard: “I understand why he wanted to do the interview: he’s been talked about, speculated about, on the front page of every paper… I think Emily felt, even when she was in the middle of interviewing him, that he wasn’t a worthy opponent.”
Andrew’s representative did not return a request for comment.
