Royal interviews have a long pedigree, but not necessarily a good one. “When you look at history, any time that a senior royal has sat down for an interview, ultimately it has always backfired,” said Katie Nicholl, author of The New Royals, and Vanity Fair’s royal correspondent, who has been writing about the Windsors for nearly two decades.
ITV will expect huge ratings for its interview with the Duke of Sussex on Sunday night, but Harry may pay the price in the long run.
Prince Andrew’s “car-crash” Panorama interview with Emily Maitlis fuelled a lawsuit that led to a £12m out of court settlement last year, but before that were Harry’s parents: the then Prince of Wales admitted his infidelity in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, and Diana, Princess of Wales, cemented their divorce by detailing her unhappiness and Charles’s relationship with Camilla in a controversial interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir.
