A Very Royal Scandal true story: How much of the drama really happened?

But, with Maitlis on board as a producer for this new production, how closely does it stick to the real-life events, and how much was added for dramatic effect?

Read on for everything you need to know about the true story behind A Very Royal Scandal.

What is the true story behind A Very Royal Scandal?

A Very Royal Scandal has been adapted from Emily Maitlis's 2019 book Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News, honing in on her 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew.

The interview aired on BBC Two on 16th November, and saw Maitlis question the royal about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier and convicted sex offender, who had been found dead in his prison cell in August of that year.

The reaction to the interview was deemed to be a major public relations crisis for the Prince, with his responses to Maitlis's questions receiving negative attention and being widely mocked online and in the press.

On 20th November 2019, it was announced that Prince Andrew would be suspending his public duties "for the foreseeable future". In May 2020, it was subsequently announced that he would permanently resign from all public duties.

Andrew's honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were removed by the Queen in January 2022.

The drama not only recreates the interview, but also dramatises the lead-up to it, including how it was secured and arranged by Newsnight, as well as the aftermath for both Andrew and Maitlis, as well as those around them.

How close does A Very Royal Scandal stick to reality?

At a recent Q&A for A Very Royal Scandal, writer Jeremy Brock called Maitlis an "incredibly generous collaborator", and revealed that he spoke often with her to get real-life detail and anecdotes to use within the drama.

However, he added that "there is a point where you do have to step away and own the material for yourself, and you have to imagine Emily and Andrew as characters in a drama. That's a crucial turning point for me."

He continued: "You're looking at it for the questions that it raises around the triangulation between power, privilege and pursuit of truth, the way that the establishment realpolitik works in truth, there's a kind of nexus also between entertainment and justice.

"I mean, there's the question as to whether the Newsnight interview can achieve its aims of speaking truth to power, or whether it's kind of subsumed into a constellation of entertainment and opinion that whirls around us 24/7, that media sphere - whether it becomes the Andrew and Emily show rather than an interrogation or a window onto the truth that it interrogates."

It therefore seems that, while much of the drama is based closely on the real events, scenes and dialogue will have been added in order to flesh out the story, and lean into particular thematic discussions.

Viewers will note that the series includes many scenes from Andrew's personal life and relationships, and while extensive research will have been carried out, those behind the drama have made clear that they had no specific access to Andrew himself.

Maitlis also discussed how closely the drama sticks to the real-life events when speaking on the podcast she presents with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, The News Agents.

She told Goodall: "I think, at the beginning, I tried really hard to want to make everything accurate, and everything real. I should say, the team were incredible, and they were so sensitive to all that stuff. I think if it had been a different team, or done in a different way, it would have freaked me out.

"But actually, everyone got it. They'd come round to my house, and I'd have chats - you know, 'If this is Christmas, what would you have, a Christmas tree or a Menorah?', and I'd be like, 'Oh yeah, both'. So at the beginning I was trying to make it very close to my life, and then just as you said, it struck me.

"And I was like, 'Actually, I'm not sure I want to do that. I don't want my children portrayed, I don't want exactly what my house looks like portrayed.' And so actually, I suddenly realised that I wanted it to be less accurate in certain parts of my life.

"I didn't use my home, we made my children's ages much younger because it was less naff really, for them to have to see portrayals of themselves. So it then became a letting go exercise, I suppose."

Goodall asked whether she felt an obligation to accurately represent her colleagues in the series, to which she said: "That was the hardest thing for me – getting other people right.

"The best thing for me in the drama was that the writer straight away went to lots of other members of the team and said, 'Tell me your recollections, tell me your memories, tell me how it happened'.

"And that was so helpful for me, because it meant that it wasn't just my interpretation, my narrative, my story - he talked to a lot of the team, that had been on the original interview, and so we got this real 360 sense of everyone's recollections.

"And I wasn't in the room for those conversations, and so I would read the script after he'd had these conversations with Stew or Esme or Jake - these are all part of the editorial production team - and I'd say, 'Oh, but that didn't happen did it?', and he'd go, 'Yeah it did'. And I'd say, 'Oh, I was never told about that at the time'."

Maitlis explained: "There's a bit at the end where we think the whole interview's been pulled, and they never actually told me that it had been pulled. They kept that from me because they didn't want to freak me out, they were sort of protecting me."

"I love the fact that it has lots of people's stories and all our different recollections have gone into making the composite of the script, making the whole," Maitlis said.

A Very Royal Scandal will stream on Amazon Prime Video from 19th September 2024 – try Amazon Prime Video for free for 30 days. Plus, read our guides to the best Amazon Prime series and the best movies on Amazon Prime.

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