Photographer claims Andrew shared sweating story off-camera
Photographer claims Andrew shared sweating story off-camera

A photographer present at Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's Newsnight interview has claimed that Andrew shared further details about his infamous sweating claim off-camera.

Andrew's interview with Emily Maitlis took place in 2019, when the then-Duke of York was questioned about his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre. Virginia, who took her own life in 2025, accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. Andrew has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and settled a US civil sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia in 2022.

Sweating claim during interview

During the interview, Andrew dismissed some of Virginia's allegations, including her claim that he had been "profusely sweating" while they danced together at Tramp nightclub in London. He told Emily: "I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War, when I was shot at ... it was almost impossible for me to sweat."

Andrew's sweating claim quickly dominated headlines and has remained one of the interview's standout moments ever since.

Photographer's account

However, photographer Mark Harrison, who worked on the interview, says Andrew left out some context. He described the experience to the Fred and Harry Borden channel on YouTube: "I'm told to shut up during the actual interview, and the interview starts and then there are these moments. I mean, I've watched his sunshine, his bonhomie, his charm up until this point.

"And suddenly I find myself; his body language changes. He's defensive in his posture. I hear words like sex, Pizza Express, sweating, these key moments, and my eyebrows are going up."

Mark went on to describe how the interview paused and a "conflab" ensued. While they chatted, Andrew recounted the sweating story in "enormous detail", details that allegedly didn't make it into the final interview.

Off-camera details

"So the interview pauses, and there's a conflab, and they stop, and then Andrew says, 'Oh, I'm sorry. Apparently, I got a date wrong'. And then he tells the story about what became the sweating story.

"But in the break, he tells the story in enormous detail, the story that he didn't actually then do on camera; his story, which hasn't been mentioned anywhere.

"So this is new, is that he described being a pilot in the helicopter being shot at and that the training they'd been given was to do the absolute opposite instinct. So your instinct, I presume, would be to turn away from a missile.

"But apparently, he'd been taught to turn, well, to do the opposite of your instinct, whether that means turning towards the missile, but something that's against the grain. And this had brought on, he described, this absence of sweating condition."

Mark claimed Emily then asked Andrew if he'd ever told this story to the cameras before. He hadn't. So, once they started rolling again, they decided to "go for it", but Mark says Andrew didn't include this context.