Chilling question Prince Andrew 'asked' news presenter Emily Maitlis included in uncomfortable new drama
It's only been a matter of months since the last television recreation was released, and already, TV producers are about to bring out another drama adaptation of Prince Andrew's famously disastrous Newsnight interview.
The only difference between Amazon Prime Video's incoming edition and Netflix's star-studded version? The focus on a particularly harrowing question that the disgraced Prince asked interviewer Emily Maitlis during the tense exchange.
By now, we're all familiar with the Duke of York's 2019 controversial conversation with the BBC presenter about his relationship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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You remember? Where the Queen's rowdiest son claimed he could sweat, then couldn't sweat, then could sweat, then discussed Pizza Express, all the while insisting he wasn't the sexual predator that accusers deemed him to be.
Let's just say, viewers were baffled as to how his advisers had ever thought the excruciating interview was going to be beneficial to his already destroyed reputation.
All jokes aside, the interview will go down in British history as one of the most heated journalistic confrontations, with a heartbreaking story of alleged abuse at the centre.
Andrew had been accused by Virginia Giuffre of sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions in Epstein's company when she was a minor.
Netflix released a star-studded adaptation of the car-crash interview earlier this year, with Rufus Sewell playing the Prince, and Gillian Anderson taking on the role of formidable broadcaster Maitlis in Scoop.
In the coming weeks, however, an Amazon Prime Video drama - starring Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson, and is actually produced by Maitlis herself - will land on screens, which sheds light on a stomach-wrenching question Andrew asked members of the BBC crew prior to the painful chat.
In a scene set to be shown, Sheen - playing the Royal - leans forward asking Maitlis and Newsnight staff, Stewart MacLean and Sam McAlister, if any of them have been abused.
"Have any of you ever been victims of abuse?" he asks.
Maitlis - visibly shocked - then replies: "Nothing that bears comparison," while MacLean and McAlister claim they haven't.
Andrew then asks: "So you’re judgement wouldn’t be coloured by anything at all?", to which Maitlis then replies again: "Not at all".
Welsh acting icon Michael Sheen has also opened up on the realities of playing such a vilified, real-life person.
"It helps with a character if you look very different when you play that character because of the act of taking that stuff off and de-rigging, as we call it," he previously told the BBC.
"I wear a wig and I've got some teeth that I put in, that's it... I try to use what I've got as much as I possibly can. But nevertheless, the more different you look, it really does help psychologically."
A Very Royal Scandal will be available to watch on Prime Video on 19 September.
Topics: Royal Family, UK News, TV And Film, Celebrity
Rhianna Benson