According to prominent correspondent Valentine Low’s new book – Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown – Prince Andrew had two ‘toe-curling’ interviews that explained who he really is as a person.
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Interview 1 – halfway across the globe
According to Low’s book, Prince Andrew had an interview with journalist John Arlidge of The Sunday Times before the 2019 Newsnight appearance. Arlidge’s interview was a profile on the Queen’s second and most favourite son.
According to Newsweek, Prince Andrew had a Shark Tank-style initiative going on which was called Pitch@Palace a few years ago. He was in Australia back then in 2017 undertaking an official visit for the same project.
So, The Sunday Times reporter had to travel halfway across the world to Australia to conduct the interview because the Prince wanted to be seen ‘in action’ – even though both of them were based in Britain.
What’s more interesting is that when Arlidge arrived in a hotel lobby in Sydney, he was asked by the Duke why he was there to interview him. Jet-lagged and in disbelief, the journalist responded that it was the Duke who invited him for the interview halfway across the globe. Arlidge expressed:
I was so annoyed that he could not remember that he'd asked me to fly halfway round the world to meet him that I could not bring myself to call him 'Sir', as I had been expressly told to do.
As such, Low labelled him as ‘Rude, gauche, insensitive, and wholly unaware of other people,’ and wrote in his book:
There, in a nutshell, is Prince Andrew.
Interview 2 – ‘toe-curling’
After the Duke was seen ‘in action,’ another interview took place at Buckingham Palace, which is described as ‘toe-curling’ by Arlidge. According to him, during the interview, Prince Andrew boasted about being an ‘ideas factory,’ but failed to give one solid example of a successful idea that he had implemented. It was to his luck that an aide came to his rescue. Arlidge described the experience:
He was, without question, the most arrogant and thoughtless public figure I have ever interviewed.
Everything he should have done, he didn't do, and everything he shouldn't have done, he did do...The interview was one of the weirdest ones I have ever done.
Andrew revealed himself to be an ‘incompetent, useless, ill-prepared and thoughtless’ man in the interviews and when Arlidge warned him that the interview may not appear to be ‘favourable’ in print, Andrew allegedly replied with:
We work with what we have.
Source Used
- Newsweek: 'Prince Andrew Had 2nd Lesser-Known 'Toe-Curling' Car Crash Interview—Book'
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