Sam McAlister who set up the now infamous Newsnight interview with the then Prince Andrew opens up about his daughters’ ‘difficult position’
Sam McAlister, the ex-BBC booker behind the former Prince Andrew’s now notorious 2019 Newsnight interview, believes Princess Beatrice and Eugenie – who is expecting her third child with husband Jack Brooksbank – are carrying a ‘terrible burden’ amid the allegations over their father.
Speaking in the latest series of former GB News host Isabel Webster‘s podcast, New Chapters, the TV producer, criminal barrister and author says, “It’s a terrible burden to have the cloud of this allegation over your father… and then the Epstein files have revealed some very unpalatable things about their mother’s behaviour.”
McAlister, who met Beatrice in the final negotiation for her father’s Newsnight interview (“she was delightful and friendly”), says of the royal siblings, “These two young women were taken to meet Epstein when he was being released from prison. I think there is space for empathy…
“But many will see them as immensely privileged young women moving in circles of money and power that most people can only dream of. I do think they are in a very difficult position with their parents. Every day there is a new revelation, and you can only imagine the burden that places on them.”
The journalist, whose eye-opening 2022 memoir Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews inspired 2024 Netflix drama Scoop, starring Billie Piper as the tenacious McAlister and Gillian Anderson as cool, calm Emily Maitlis, explores the fallout from the globally-debated interview – and her own story of risk and reinvention.
Lifting the lid on her incredible journey towards securing the Prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, for an extraordinary sit-down during which he addressed his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein for the first time, the single mum said it was a risky time for her – as she decided to leave a secure job after the huge scoop, and write a book.
“I was crazy worried. I was raising my son on my own, on a single income. I was earning around £30,000 a year, living in London, with a lodger to help pay the bills”, she says.
“I didn’t go on holidays. I didn’t have a car. The kitchen needed doing and the shower was held up by tape. It still is. The peril was real. If this does not work out, my child does not eat. There is no plan B. There is no wealthy partner, no trust fund, nothing else. So the exposure to risk was huge.”
Thankfully, she bagged the book deal she was hoping for – and streaming giant Netflix came knocking before it was even published, something she found hard to believe at first.
“I genuinely thought my mum would buy ten copies of the book and maybe one other person would buy it. But I knew I had a story. I know what news is, I know how storytelling works, and I knew I had an untold story that could grab people.”
On seeing Billie Piper play her on the small screen, she says, “When she said yes, I was crying, screaming, you name it. She is such a talented, brilliant human. A household name in a blonde wig, wearing pleather and snakeskin boots, strutting around pretending to be you. It’s unbelievable.”
Asked by Webster – who since January has hosted The Matt Allwright Show on Channel 5 on Fridays, what advice she’d give to any other women out there wanting to start a new chapter but lacking in confidence, she has some words of wisdom.
“You can’t jump without somewhere to land. You do have to plan. But confidence and self-belief are things you have to work on your entire life.
“The thing that mattered more to me than going to the gym and flexing my physical muscles was flexing my confidence muscles. Practising believing in myself. Take it as a priority to build a fulfilling lifetime relationship with yourself. Be someone you like.”
New Chapters Season 2 from broadcaster Isabel Webster produced in association with El Pepito is available to listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major platforms.
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