Prince Andrew Asked Whether He Should Say He Could Not Sweat—Interviewer
Prince Andrew asked a TV interviewer whether it "would be interesting to hear" he cannot sweat before the car crash sit down chat that began his retreat from public life.
The Duke of York had been dogged by allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old trafficking victim for several years when Jeffrey Epstein died in August 2019.
The apparent suicide in a jail cell in Manhattan brought renewed reporting on accusations by Virginia Giuffre, who says the pedophile financier and Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to London when she was 17 to have sex with Andrew.
The prince denies all the accusations.
In that context, Queen Elizabeth II's son arranged a sit down interview with BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis in November 2019.
However, in a piece for the BBC, she said they met beforehand to talk through some of what the prince would say.
Matilis wrote: "It was Prince Andrew who volunteered the information to me in that early meeting that he was 'unable to sweat'.
"His Falkland Islands wartime experiences, he claimed, had produced a glut of adrenaline that meant he hadn't been able to sweat properly since being shot at.
"I remember him asking me very directly if we thought that would be interesting to hear. And I said yes—I was fascinated by adrenaline—and that we wanted to hear as much detail of his account as we could."
She added: "We went into that interview knowing that we would have one chance to get it right."
Maitlis described how they did not intend to "catch him out" but rather to capture on the record Prince Andrew's version of events so it could be used should the allegations against him ever reach a court.
The duke's account of not being able to sweat is the first claim Giuffre's lawyers have sought to test, requesting documentary evidence to prove he had the condition.
Andrew's lawyers were forced to concede in a court filing dated December 27, 2021, that he does not posses documents proving the medical condition, stating: "No such documents exist in his possession, custody or control."
However, that is not the only line from the interview that may come under scrutiny, as Matilis described in her piece for the BBC.
She wrote: "We had asked him to explain his whereabouts on the night Ms Giuffre alleged he had danced with her in Tramp nightclub, in London.
"His office had checked the date, and told us he couldn't have been with her because he had been at a children's birthday party that same evening.
"I'm not sure we knew about Woking, but we did know about Pizza Express. The prince, in other words, had his alibi ready. He wanted to get that across in the interview.
"Of course, a children's birthday tea party and a late night in a club are not chronologically incompatible: it would have been more than possible to do both.
"But the point of the interview was not to catch him out: I can't stress this enough. The point of the interview was just to have a record of Prince Andrew's own version of events."
She added: "When I listen back to the questions I posed that day there is a directness to them that even now makes me catch my breath. I can't quite believe that the words came out in the order I intended. But they had to. Because we had just one chance."
A court filing by Andrew's team, seen by Newsweek, responded to requests for evidence of his inability to sweat.
It read: "Defendant [Prince Andrew] is unable to comply with Request No. 8 because no such documents exist in his possession, custody or control.
"A diligent search and a reasonable inquiry have been made in an effort to comply with this demand."
It added: "Defendant objects to this Request on the grounds that it is harassing and seeks confidential and private information and documents that are irrelevant, immaterial and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."
