Who Is Jason Stein, Prince Andrew's Former Advisor?
In Scoop, Netflix's new film about Prince Andrew's disastrous BBC interview, the royal hires Jason Stein as a new PR advisor. "There's no quick fix to a story like this," Stein (played by Alex Waldmann) tells Prince Andrew (played by Rufus Sewell) in an early scene.
In the portrayal, Stein later tells the Duke of York, "My instinct is that you haven't had the right strategy. Epstein and the whole 'playboy Prince' thing should've been put to bed a long time ago—and I can make it go away. But you have to let me control it." He puts together a list of "friendly journalists" for Andrew to invite to the Palace for an off-the-record tea, to start working on changing his public image.
Later, when Andrew private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keely Hawes) meets with the BBC team to talk about moving forward with an interview, Stein asks her, worriedly, "Conditions, Amanda? You discussed conditions?" She says they did not. "Oh my god," Stein replies. "I can't do this. I'm out."
While this is a fictionalization of what actually happened, in real life, Jason Stein did quit his job before Andrew's interview with Newsnight. Per the Guardian, Stein was hired by Andrew in September 2019 "to mastermind his PR fightback," with the official title of communications secretary.
Stein, however, was only employed for a few weeks; he quit two weeks before the Newsnight interview, the Guardian reports, "after his advice to reject the Newsnight interview request was ignored." The paper also reported shortly after the interview that "friends of Jason Stein, who worked as the prince’s press adviser for little more than a fortnight, confirmed that he told Andrew not to do the interview shortly before leaving his position by mutual consent."
According to his LinkedIn, Stein now works as a Managing Director at FGS Global, a public relations company. Before, he was a Special Adviser to Prime Minister Liz Truss during her brief tenure.
He describes himself as an "experienced communications and government affairs professional who has worked in some of the busiest and high pressured news environments with a wide range of senior politicians, business leaders, athletes and high profile individuals."
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