How Amanda Thirsk Convinced Prince Andrew to Sit for the BBC Interview

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In 2019, around the time of Prince Andrew's Newsnight interview, a key member of his household was his private secretary Amanda Thirsk.

Thirsk, in fact, was one of the key reasons Andrew agreed to do the interview in the first place. As Sam McAlister writes in her book, Scoops, "The crucial relationship that resulted in this interview happening was my one with his (former) Chief of Staff, Amanda Thirsk. It was my negotiations with her – honest, sometimes uncomfortable, direct – that laid the foundation for the eventual 'yes'. She knew I was plain talking, and that my dealings were in good faith. Because that's all, ultimately, that we have – our reputation."

Before she met with Thirsk to pitch the interview, McAlister recalls she did a lot of research to understand her. "Although I hadn't heard of Amanda Thirsk before, I knew a couple of friends who likely had, and who had also met Prince Andrew, and so I checked in with them to get an idea of who I would be meeting," she writes. "The picture that came back was of someone who was entirely my ideal kind of person to negotiate with – they said that she was formidable, clever, thorough, sharp, fiercely loyal to Prince Andrew, and didn't suffer fools gladly."

Though that first meeting didn't result in the interview, McAlister and Thirsk stayed in touch, especially after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest in July 2019. It was ultimately Epstein's death that got the interview from a "no" to a "yes" for Thirsk, leading McAlister and the Newsnight team to meet with Prince Andrew, to convince him to sit down with Emily Maitlis.

At that last meeting, "the decision was for Prince Andrew, but it was clear that he was already thinking about who he would choose to speak to, rather than whether he would choose to speak at all, and we already thought that Amanda seemed keen for him to speak with a heavyweight interviewer, like Emily, rather than do an interview that could be accused of choosing someone who would give him an 'easy time.'"

Of course, we know he ultimately agreed, and the interview took place, as is portrayed in Netflix's new movie, Scoop. In the film, Thirsk is played by Keeley Hawes. Thirsk "was pivotal in the decision that Prince Andrew should do this interview with Newsnight," Hawes says, adding, "She was a great friend of his and she obviously thought he was a great person. She wanted everybody to see Prince Andrew the way that she saw him and thought that would be a really positive thing. Unfortunately, as we now know, it was not to be."

Since the events of the interview, does Amanda Thirsk still work for Prince Andrew? What is she up to now?

Thirsk joined the royal household in 2004, and was the Duke of York's Private Secretary from 2012 to 2020. She also served as the director of his Pitch@Palace project. In January 2020, she left the Palace, reportedly agreeing to a legal settlement with Buckingham Palace, and in April 2020, she stepped down from her Pitch@Palace role.

Thirsk was widely blamed for Andrew's interview, with a source close to Sarah Ferguson telling the Telegraph in 2019, "This has Amanda Thirsk's hands all over it. The Duke is not very quick on his feet so how could Amanda put him up to it. Amanda was the one who pushed for it. Fifty minutes with anybody on the one subject is going to be difficult. Even Newsnight were flabbergasted."

According to a Sky News report in February 2024, Thirsk "is understood to have been working with JD, one of China's biggest e-commerce groups, for much of the period since she left the Palace." The publication added, "sources said she was now involved in JD.com's evaluation of a possible bid for [the British retailer] Currys."

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