No longer keeping it under her hat, Emily shares ‘surreal’ secret
NEWSNIGHT host Emily Maitlis is supported by a four-legged pal as she reveals she’s also had backing from an unexpected source – Dominic Cummings.
Emily, 49, was blasted by viewers and BBC bosses in May for a blistering opening speech about the Prime Minister’s chief adviser making a 260-mile trip during lockdown.
She said: “Dominic Cummings broke the rules. The country can see that, and it’s shocked the Government cannot.”
But she has now told Tatler Magazine that he sent her a friendly text afterwards – and she got more public support than after her interview with Prince Andrew about Jeffrey Epstein last year. Emily, who was photographed with her whippet Moody, said of Mr Cummings’ text: “It was peak surreal getting a message of support from him in the middle of all the crazy stuff.” But she refused to say what he wrote.
The BBC said her outburst “did not meet our standards of due impartiality” and there had been thousands of complaints.
However, Emily told Tatler she was deluged with messages of support, saying: “I think that was the biggest I’ve had – more than Andrew, more than anything. I was overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting such a flood of warmth.” Of Andrew’s interview, which led to him stepping down as a senior royal, Emily said he “was very pleased” afterwards.
She added: “He was actually so generous with his time. He took us on a tour of the extraordinary corridor of Buckingham Palace. He said to me, ‘Next time you come, we’ll talk about Prince Albert. He was the entrepreneur of the family.’”
Emily hadn’t “grasped exactly what was in the interview until I finished. You’re so determined not to miss a beat, to check with yourself you haven’t got something stupendously wrong, that actually you’re not sitting there grinning, thinking, ‘Hahaha! That’s amazing!”’
● Read the full interview in September’s Tatler, out on Thursday on newsstands and via download.