The timeline last Friday was as follows: we heard late Thursday that a verdict would be coming in on Prince Harry’s security appeal in the UK. The appeal verdict was released at 9 am EST (2 pm GMT) and 6 am PST. Roughly six hours after the appeals verdict came out, the BBC aired their exclusive, bombshell interview with Harry. I would imagine that Harry and his team already had conversations and negotiations in place for an interview for whenever the verdict came out, but the way the raw interview came out so quickly – and the fact that the BBC aired the whole thing without edits – was a huge surprise to supporters and haters alike. It caught Buckingham Palace off-guard and they spent the entire weekend reacting to it. So who gets the credit for the interview? Apparently Meredith Maines, the Sussexes’ chief of communications, who only started the job in early March.
Prince Harry shocked the producers of his bombshell BBC interview after he spoke for 20 minutes over their agreed time in an emotionally charged interview.
The Duke of Sussex launched a diatribe against his family in an astonishing interview with the broadcaster on Friday just moments after he lost his legal challenge over his UK security arrangements.
According to The Times, the BBC team had been expecting a maximum of 10 minutes with the Duke, who ended up tripling that length of time and speaking for around half an hour.
The outlet reported that unlike previous controlled interviews with the Duke, nothing was off-limits in his sit down with journalist Nada Tawfik. Sources told the outlet that he appeared ‘subdued’ but also ‘very keen to talk’ as he he leveled not-so-veiled criticisms at his family and the British government.
A property near his Montecito home in California that he shares with his wife Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and their two children was picked as the location. The Duchess was not present at the interview. She also never appeared alongside Harry as he fought in court the last three years.
The chief of communications for their Archewell Foundation, Meredith Maines, had been the chief architect of the interview, the outlet reported.
I’ve talked about Maines before in the context of a brand new communications approach for Harry and Meghan this year. You can really see the difference in the Sussexes’ presentations and comms since they hired Maines, and she’s doing an amazing job. It was an incredible move to get Harry in front of the BBC cameras within the same newscycle as the verdict, and the palace and the press were on the backfoot immediately.
You can tell so much about the efficacy of Maines’ work because the Mail has now devoted several stories to analyzing what little they know about her. The Mail had a hilariously unhinged piece about how Meredith and Meghan are very similar – buried within that piece is this line: “But Mrs Maines has also faced scrutiny this weekend after it was revealed she was the chief architect of Harry’s disastrous BBC interview, in which he launched another scathing attack on his family.” Disastrous, huh? Disastrous for whom? For the royals who were called out on the BBC?
Photos courtesy of BBC News and Meghan’s IG.
