Prince Andrew on The Today Show (USA) 29 January 2008

[iowabelle]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Oh that's good!!
I rather liked the way he just raised his eyebrows and gave her a "look" when she asked about the fantasies as if to say "Excuse me?" Not a royal snub by any stretch of the matter, just a little jab to remind her who she was talking to.

Yes, it was a rather gentle response from Andrew. If Meredith had been speaking to Prince Philip or Princess Anne, I doubt the response would have been as mild.

[zembla]

Originally Posted by iowabelle

Yes, it was a rather gentle response from Andrew. If Meredith had been speaking to Prince Philip or Princess Anne, I doubt the response would have been as mild.

Well thankfully he isn't as stuffy as those two...

I always liked Andrew...he seems very nice and easy going. He's a good rep for the royal family...he's not stiff and never comes off too superior.

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by iowabelle

Yes, it was a rather gentle response from Andrew. If Meredith had been speaking to Prince Philip or Princess Anne, I doubt the response would have been as mild.

I rather think he was being a gentleman. Something Meredith really didn't deserve with those wacky questions. . . .

[ysbel]

Originally Posted by Russophile

I think she was used to being on "The View" where they just talk.
No, she wasn't very good. Maybe she was jittery?

I don't know what she did before the View but it seems that she doesn't know how to ask questions.

It was almost like she'd never interviewed before.

It was weird but Andrew did have a sense of humour which I enjoyed. What did he say about Sarah? I didn't get that far.

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by ysbel

I don't know what she did before the View but it seems that she doesn't know how to ask questions.

It was almost like she'd never interviewed before.

It was weird but Andrew did have a sense of humour which I enjoyed. What did he say about Sarah? I didn't get that far.

Which is strange because she started on some cutting edge show back in the 80's I remember seeing her on that. It was made by ABC to take on CBS's 60 minutes, so she has the experience. I just don't know why she was such a dork!
HRH was very much the gentleman talking about Sarah. He reminded me a lot of my father. When my parents divorced, my father never said an unkind word about my mother, my mother vilified my father every chance she could get. When I was 18 and having words with my mother, after slamming the phone down I turned to my father and said, "How could you LIVE with THAT WOMAN??" he calmly said, "It was very difficult."
HRH reminds me of that. Class act!

[lexi4]

I thought he did well. I do like him. I don't like Meredith Vieira. I never have. She isn't a journalist, she is a poor entertainer and her interview questions reflected as much.
Lexi

[ysbel]

Originally Posted by Russophile

Which is strange because she started on some cutting edge show back in the 80's I remember seeing her on that. It was made by ABC to take on CBS's 60 minutes, so she has the experience. I just don't know why she was such a dork!
HRH was very much the gentleman talking about Sarah. He reminded me a lot of my father. When my parents divorced, my father never said an unkind word about my mother, my mother vilified my father every chance she could get. When I was 18 and having words with my mother, after slamming the phone down I turned to my father and said, "How could you LIVE with THAT WOMAN??" he calmly said, "It was very difficult."
HRH reminds me of that. Class act!

You're right. Lucky for Andrew that Sarah is always very complimentary about him although it seems she gets criticized for being cloying and fake when she speaks well of Andrew and the Royal family. I must say that after you described your experience with your mother, I think I'd rather have my divorced parents be nice, and cloying, and fake towards each other rather than truthful, and honest, and nasty.

I saw the rest of the interview and Andrew credited Sarah for keeping the girls grounded. He said that she had the unique perspective of being born into a normal life, marrying into royalty and the getting out of royalty and going back to a normal life which he couldn't give the children because he had always been royal.

I also saw the part of the interview when Meredith asked him about fantasies. LOL I think he was scared she was going to share some dirty sexual fantasy with him; I know a lot of girls that have had one about Andrew. But what struck me was when he said that he never fantasized about being someone else; he just said that he dealt with what he had. I thought that was interesting; it seems charming as Andrew is, he is a man with no imagination, he just deals with his life the ways it is and he doesn't seem to wonder what would happen if he hadn't done such and such or what if he had done that. I was thinking he may have a hard time understanding others who are not royal army officers so I doubt if he can be all that understanding and empathetic of Beatrice's and Eugenie's growing pains as girls.

[Russophile]

It's like coming from the bottom up. We have been at the bottom, we can fantasize about being princesses (of course I was always a tom-boy so I was the disguised knight! ) because things are "better" richer, better food, clothing, people (one would hope!) etc. He can't. He's always been at the top so it's hard to look down.
Does this make sense?

[zembla]

Joel on Talk Soup did a funny commentary on this interview...LOL

[ysbel]

Originally Posted by Russophile

It's like coming from the bottom up. We have been at the bottom, we can fantasize about being princesses (of course I was always a tom-boy so I was the disguised knight! ) because things are "better" richer, better food, clothing, people (one would hope!) etc. He can't. He's always been at the top so it's hard to look down.
Does this make sense?

Interesting thought Russophile.

I was thinking along the same line but not so much as Andrew having it better than the rest of us. I imagine some son of a Saudi billionaire would have had it better than Andrew without the burden of being royal.

But I do agree that Andrew was born into a lifestyle and will die in a lifestyle that carries very different expectations for its members than the rest of us. I think the difference of expectations of what is proper behavior and what is not would be the hardest thing to understand and like I said, I don't think Andrew has that much of an imagination to be able to put himself in someone else's shoes for awhile.

[Mermaid1962]

Andrew's comment about being a person who sees the glass half-full rather than half-empty was quite revealing. It seems that he has a really good attitude about his Royal role: rather than complain about all his "burdens", he just gets on with it. He sounds like an optimistic person.

[GlitteringTiaras]

Originally Posted by zembla

Joel on Talk Soup did a funny commentary on this interview...LOL

I saw that (I love Joel McHale, btw).

I completely agree with him (and others in the media) who noted that they were completely and utterly embarrassed by Meridith's childish and pathetic behavior. I literally cringed watching her ask such inane questions. Andrew handled it quite well, but from now on I hope she will be banned from ever interviewing another royal family member again.

[Russophile]

Is there a link to Joel's show on that? I would be interested in seeing/hearing that!

[debzone]

It is supposed to be repeated again at in a few hours 12am ET. I am assuming it is the same episode?

[rmay286]

Originally Posted by GlitteringTiaras

I saw that (I love Joel McHale, btw).

I completely agree with him (and others in the media) who noted that they were completely and utterly embarrassed by Meridith's childish and pathetic behavior. I literally cringed watching her ask such inane questions. Andrew handled it quite well, but from now on I hope she will be banned from ever interviewing another royal family member again.

I wouldn't guarantee she'd be quite as "inane" around another member of the royal family. I don't know, but I got the impression she was acting particularly silly and was blurting out the first thing that came into her head because she found Andrew attractive (like a lot of people in this thread apparently, me included, although Andrew is way too old for me. )

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by rmay286

I wouldn't guarantee she'd be quite as "inane" around another member of the royal family. I don't know, but I got the impression she was acting particularly silly and was blurting out the first thing that came into her head because she found Andrew attractive (like a lot of people in this thread apparently, me included, although Andrew is way too old for me. )

You know, I think you may have hit on something there. People do a lot of stupid things when they are attracted to somebody and they try to hide it.

[iowabelle]

I wondered about an attraction too. I thought she was quite flirtatious and flustered with him. (You know, I remember 20-some years ago Meredith was a serious journalist -- and then she scaled back to have children -- and she has a disabled husband -- then she joined The View and became host of So You Want to Be a Millionaire. That kind of sounded like the death of her journalistic career to me, but Today Show execs decided otherwise. BTW, she's not funny on Millionaire either.)

Did anyone else notice how the Today Show kept peppering the Andrew segments with announcements of an upcoming segment on male baldness? I was rather amused, as Andrew's hair seemed a little... spotty.

Perhaps we should petition to keep Meredith away from Royals and Larry King away from so-called Royals experts?

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by iowabelle

Perhaps we should petition to keep Meredith away from Royals and Larry King away from so-called Royals experts?

What was the Larry King episode? I missed that.