The British media warn that The Crown does not intend to cover the scandals related to Prince Andrew in its final episodes. Carlos’s younger brother could breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the benevolence of screenwriter Peter Morgan. But, just because a production as prestigious as this one does not want to be interested in him, does not mean that everyone thinks the same. Prime Video, Amazon’s content platform, has just given the green light to A very royal scandal, a three-episode miniseries that will analyze the prince’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the American tycoon accused of pedophilia and convicted of sexual assaults.
The production, which is written by Jeremy Brock (Brideshead Revisits, The Last King of Scotland), will focus more specifically on the interview that Andrés gave to the Newsnight program to manage his image crisis. A priori, it should have served to neutralize the rumors surrounding him as a beneficiary of the sexual abuse network created by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, but it served the opposite purpose: to convey to public opinion an even more negative image of the prince. .
It was November 2019. Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein and Maxwell, had accused him of being a client of the millionaire’s illegal services, in addition to having slept with her when she was still a minor. Epstein, who had pleaded guilty in 2005 to abusing a 14-year-old girl, had been arrested again, this time for sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York, and had committed suicide in his Manhattan correctional cell. And, in the middle of this media storm, Isabel’s favorite son sat down with journalist Emily Maitlis.
The interview, as we said, did not contribute to their cause. He said that, for example, if he was seen in 2010 with Epstein it was because he was a very “honorable” person and they had just caught him with the sex offender on the day he informed him that he had to stop any kind of communication and friendship due to the charges. for which he had been convicted. He did not appear sorry for having been friends with Epstein and, regarding Giuffre’s sexual abuse accusations, he presented a weak argument.
Instead of clearing his name, he came away worse from the broadcast of the interview, conveying an arrogant image, refusing to distance himself from Epstein, and failing to dispel doubts surrounding the severe accusations leveled against him. And, to carry out this key moment in the recent history of the English monarchy, Prime Video will entrust the work to two heavyweights of British television: Michael Sheen (Good Omens) as the brother of King Charles and Ruth Wilson (Luther) like Emily Maitlis.
With A very royal scandal, the platform continues with its particular television anthology about media cases in the United Kingdom. They first covered the Thorpe affair in A very English scandal by Russell T. Davies with Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, about the homosexual affair between the deputy Jeremy Thorpe with Norman Josiffe, who accused him of planning his death to kill, in the process, the rumors around their relationship. And, after this production in 2018, A Very British Scandal was released in 2021 with Claire Foy and Paul Bettany, about the problematic marriage and divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll.
