PRINCE Andrew’s own-goal Newsnight interview could have been avoided entirely – had he listened to the Queen and Princess Beatrice, says a royal expert.
Former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis told how his daughter’s presence in early negotiations led her to believe Andrew was doing the interview to please her.
But contrary to the presenter's claims, the Princess was determined to talk her father out of the televised spectacle, according to royal biographer Angela Levin.
Angela said: “She thinks very clearly. And she really tried to persuade him not to do it.
“She didn't think it would benefit him in any way. He didn't listen to her – he loves her dearly, but he didn't listen.
“She insisted on being there. It was damage limitation.”
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She added: "The Queen was in Beatrice's camp."
Newsnight producer Sam McAlister told how the excruciating PR nightmare did not apparently dawn on Andrew at first in new Channel 4 documentary Andrew – The Problem Prince.
The only inkling of how badly the interview went was when the Queen broke it to Andrew that it did not go well, but Angela said she didn't intervene for fear it would make matters worse.
Angela said: “The Queen wasn't very keen on it. But she didn't actually see what he'd said until after the programme.
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“Although she might have been horrified, I think it was going to be very, very difficult to stop it because that would create more publicity.”
She added that the Queen wouldn't have put a stop to it being shown because she never "micro-managed" her children.
"She wouldn't have lost her temper. I don't think she's done that with Andrew at all," Angela said.
"She was never micromanaging her children. She was very busy with her duties."
During the November 2019 interview, Andrew rubbished claims he sexually abused a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London.
He offered up bizarre explanations in his defence claiming he couldn’t have been sweating in a nightclub and added he had been at Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter on that date.
He also stood by his friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein who killed himself while awaiting trial months earlier in 2019.
Angela said: “The pizza [story] was a nonsense. The sweating made you grimace. You don't want to know that about anybody – especially not a royal."
She added: “He thought he had a jolly good answer. But it was terrible. And that shows really what poor judgement he has.”
Staggeringly, the Prince was keen to keep working with children’s charities after the Queen stripped him of his military honours and charity patronages in the wake of the car crash broadcast.
His patronages included children and young people's charities Soundseekers and the Outward Bound Trust.
Angela said: “Anybody with common sense would realise that a charity for children would not want somebody on their letterhead called Prince Andrew when he's been associated with a paedophile.
“But he hasn't. He doesn't seem to see that.
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“When things have happened, he wipes them from his mind and carries on as he was before.”
Prince Andrew settled his civil law suit with Virginia Giuffre out of court in a reported £9.6million deal last year.
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