Mm-hmm

...

in Orthorp in the pool with throwing the kids up in the air.

You know, having clearly a really nice family summer holiday there.

And I was also in, um, St. Paul's Cathedral a couple years ago for this Invictus game Thanksgiving service, and Earl Spencer was there, uh, with Lady Jane Fellowes, his older sister, and Harry was obviously there.

And, you know, I watched really clearly the obvious warmth and intimacy and love between them all was so obvious.

They spent ages talking to each other, the hugs, they sat close to each other.

But I suppose, what, what, what damage, if any, Daniela, do you think this will do the royal family in the long term, all of this mess?

Just remind us what, what, what that was like at the time.

I mean, nobody quite knew how big that moment would be historically or just how emotional people would feel or how the country, the world would respond to the death of Diana.

There was a, a massive outpouring wherever you looked of people's own personal sadness and grief.

There was no sense of restraint or people holding back.

It was, I suppose, terribly un-British for, for a, a better way of putting it.

And the thing about this is Earl Spencer would obviously, as the younger brother of Diana, have been very involved in terms of what happened after her death.

So a- and part of what we're seeing in the book here is about some of those moments.

It's, it is the lines.

Uh, the other thing that's happened since we spoke last week when this news first broke is that, um, the courts ruled that Prince Harry and the other people he was, um, going to court with, uh, to sue the owners of the Daily Mail, um, for phone hacking and other kind of intrusive behavior in the past, uh, the case that they lost But the judges have said you've got to stump up a lot of Associated Newspapers costs, like a lot.

A lot.

You know, £9 million is an, uh, uh, an initial payment.

Uh, there is an insurance policy that will cover up to £16 million, but there now has to be a further level of discussion between all parties about what that final figure is gonna be.

It could be up to £34 million that Harry and the others involved in that lawsuit will have to pay up to Associated Newspapers, and that is a really terrible way to have to come back [laughs] to the UK for Harry.

I mean, look, he is wealthy by any standard.

There's lots of chatter about, uh, you know, how much money have they got? Are they back here because there's money problems in the States? They have money.

Is-- What, what, what do we think about that?

... that maybe they could.

And we know they were staying at Althorp during that week, and if that was a very successful formula for them, you do wonder whether perhaps that helped push the decision on to say, "Hang on, we're gonna give this life a go back in the UK." I think all of that was in the mix, and that was really important.

I also think that that week, um, and generally the summer that they spent with some time in Portugal where they have a home and some time in the UK was quite informative in terms of the family really liking the flavor of life in Europe and what could happen here, um, in terms of being closer to family, of living a different kind of lifestyle, of having a different experience for their children.

And we know that in particular, they really loved spending time with Diana's side of the family, the, um, the Spencer family, the McCorkadelles, Diana's sister, the, the older cousins of Archie and Lilibet.

That was all there in the mix as well, and I think that w- has, uh, quite a decisive moment in terms of Harry and Meghan's thinking.

My understanding, talking to people around them, is although this had been brewing for a bit, and they'd been thinking about it, it wasn't completely set in stone, but that week really did land some decisions for them in terms of their experience.

Mm.

But, you know, had other sources of income and did other work alongside royal duties.

Now, in that same month, a- and I'd like to ask you about this one in particular, Daniela, Donald Trump told Fox News, uh, he was critical of the role of NATO troops, and he said of UK troops, "They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, and they did, but they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." What was the blowback, if any, that you encountered from the royal family of those comments about the military?

military?There was definite blowback about that one particular comment.

The implication was that somehow they hadn't quite been brave enough in Afghanistan, hadn't, hadn't sort of been courageous enough, hadn't been the same as the Americans.

That caused an absolute furor behind the scenes, particularly among the King's closest advisors and the King himself at Buckingham Palace.

You know, you have to remember that the King is the head of the armed forces in the UK, and although they would not openly or on the record get involved in contradicting what President Trump had said or in any way publicly directly admonishing him, they made it very clear through back channels and through other conversations that were had that that was something that they were deeply unhappy with and did not want to hear again.

And actually, the president's mood just a couple of days later softened in some of his social media posts about the role of Britain, and he went on to praise British soldiers in that moment.

Do you have any sense of how that might factor into the King's visit?

Yeah, I mean, I think perhaps that address to Congress will be one of the more uncomfortable moments for the King during his trip to America because, as you say, there will be lawmakers and politicians listening to the King's speech who've also called on his younger brother to come to the States and to give evidence to Congress about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

But that infamous photo of then Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre, um, more than 20 years ago, a photo that he said might not even be real, the emails released by the Epstein, from the Epstein releases suggest that it is real.

Yeah, that photo I think everyone will remember, and i- in my mind it really does symbolize the start of the real public downfall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

It's that one of him standing with Virginia Giuffre, who of course accused him of sexual abuse.

There's Ghislaine Maxwell in the background.

He appears to have his arm 'round Virginia Giuffre's waist.

Now, in the Newsnight interview, he said he had no recollection, of course, of meeting Virginia Giuffre, no recollection of that photo, and seemed in his answers to cast out on whether it was genuine, perhaps it had been doctored, was the phrase he used.

But in the latest drop of Epstein files, there's an email in there from 2015, uh, from Ghislaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein, and in it she seems to suggest that that photo is true.

Mm

More revelations from the cache of Epstein emails about her communications with him.

Yeah, that's right.

For me, it's been very much a Sarah Ferguson day, actually.

It's sort of shifted across today in terms of what we're seeing and what we found in the documents.

And there are just a whole series of emails from her to Epstein and a couple from Epstein back to her.

And there is, to be honest, just a real desperation.

in the words and the content of what she's saying.

Just explain what's going on there.

Seems to me the focus today is much more on his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.

Yeah, I think so too.

I think the overriding thing with it in terms of the royal family is that all of these emails and messages and the exchanges with Epstein really do just emphasise the depths of the relationship between Sarah Ferguson, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Geoffrey Epstein.

There is an informality, a closeness in the way they refer to each other.

I mean, if you just look at what Sarah Ferguson was emailing Geoffrey Epstein, just to give a little flavour...

It's things like, thank you, Jeffrey, for being the brother I've always wished for.

You are a legend.

Yeah,