BBC viewers squirmed after Robert Maxwell’s secretary revealed in a new documentary that he and Ghislaine were greeting each other by “meowing” like cats.
Former Mirror Group secretary Carol Bragoli spoke about the awkward conversations she had with the media mogul’s daughter on the first episode of House of Maxwell last night.
Before starting a conversation, he remembered overhearing a strange conversation between the two of them where they “meow” for minutes.
Carol said the media magnate had a “quite different relationship” with Ghislaine from her siblings, often “wandering around the building” whenever she wanted to.
According to a new documentary, Robert Maxwell and his daughter Ghislaine “meow” each other in greeting. Robert and Ghislaine pictured watching the Oxford v Brighton football match in October 1984
Employees said the media magnate had a “definitely different relationship” with Ghislaine from her siblings. The father and daughter are pictured at a party with their mother, Elisabeth, on Maxwell’s yacht in 1990.
“I can’t get the ‘meow’ calls out of my mind between father and daughter,” wrote one concerned viewer.
Another astonished spectator said: Meow… It’s not really a natural behavior.
“Oh, they were meowing to each other. Talk about weird,” wrote the third.
The three-part documentary series chronicles how Ghislaine Maxwell transforms from being the daughter of a multimillionaire to a woman convicted of caring for and selling underage girls.
Viewers immediately took to Twitter to comment on the bizarre phone call, describing the behavior as “weird”.
Last night’s episode covered Robert’s formative influence on his family, especially when he was at the head of his struggling publishing empire during the last few years of his life.
Carol explained that she was tasked with working on the company’s annual report and was asked to sit in a “closet” in Maxwell’s office.
He says his calls are always on speakerphone because he “didn’t bother” to lift the device up and just “forgot it was there”.
“He was sitting at his desk and I was always behind me and I heard everything, all the calls, he had a lot of calls,” she said.
“One day the front desk called and she said ‘Ghislaine’ and she said ‘Wear it’ and then what I heard was ‘meow’ and she said ‘meow, meow’ and she said ‘meow’.
Carol Bragoli, former secretary of the Mirror Group, talked about the awkward conversations the media mogul had with her daughter last night on the new series House of Maxwell.
This went on for a dozen or so meows and all of a sudden, ‘What are you doing?’ said. and he said, “Nothing,” and I thought, “Yeah, that’s right.” He definitely had a relationship with Ghislaine unlike any other.
Carol remembered Ghislaine as “very attractive” with “beautiful long legs” and said she would “walk around the office” before sitting in the corner of her desk.
Former Sunday Mirror editor Eve Pollard described the complex relationship between Maxwell and her children, revealing that they have a loving but turbulent bond.
She said: “She had a great love for Ian, Kevin, and Ghislaine. It was the kind of love that could capture your throat as well as your heart, and you never knew which way it would go.”
Pollard recalled that Robert had refused Ghislaine’s request to work for her at the newspaper, claiming she had always been his favorite daughter.
“When Ghislaine left Oxford she kept telling me I could hire her. I said, “I run a newspaper and I don’t think you want to be a journalist.”
Former Sunday Mirror editor Eve Pollard described the complex relationship between Maxwell and her children, revealing that they had “the kind of love that gets you by the throat”.
“When she was young, she was beautiful and smart. It is always said that she is his favorite girl.
He spoke of his family base in Headington Hall, which has become the home of media mogul Robert Maxwell, but who allegedly spends little time at home with loved ones.
“If you go to Headington Hall, Bob’s wife, Betty, is at the base and the kids are there,” he said.
“Bob would usually barely make it home on the weekends or come home for an hour or two half a day and then come back to the Sunday Mirror on Saturday nights. You’d think he’d stay in that nice house with his kids.
“And it would be pretty hard sometimes. So you want your dad to be a very sweet, sociable dad who loves you unconditionally.”
Maxwell House available on BBC iPlayer
Source: Daily Mail
