Watching Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview was as excruciating as it was incredible. The repercussions from this PR calamity are gathering pace as various institutions cut their ties with the Prince of York, and he cancels an official engagement in South Yorkshire to attend a “crisis summit” at Buckingham Palace.
The media interview that Prince Andrew reportedly considered to be a ‘great success” is rapidly becoming “the biggest royal crisis in a generation”
So why did it all go so badly wrong?
Prince Andrew: “He has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner that was unbecoming…”
— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) November 16, 2019
Maitlis: “Unbecoming? He was a sex offender”
The moment. pic.twitter.com/oYcZcZ5j1y#PrinceAndrew
Perhaps what shocked people most was his lack of empathy and concern for Jeffery Epstein’s victims and lack of regret over his friendship with a convicted paedophile.
The interview smacked of privilege and arrogance, from choosing the interview setting in the plush rooms at Buckingham Palace to the vivid memory of his trip to Pizza Express in Woking.
Could good media training have saved him? Most PR professionals, including his own, would have recommended against doing the Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis.
Ms Maitlis’s gently determined, well-researched and calmly unrelenting style was in sharp contrast to Prince Andrew’s squirming, meandering responses. She managed to tease out sometimes shocking responses from the duke, as he casually referred to Jeffery Epstein’s sex offences as “unbecoming behaviour”.
You can watch the whole interview. It’s a master class in how not to conduct a media interview.
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