Trailer: The Runaway Princesses

In The Dark

The New Yorker

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 28.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The wives and daughters of Dubai’s ruler live in unbelievable luxury. So why do the women in Sheikh Mohammed’s family keep trying to run away? The New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake joins In the Dark’s Madeleine Baran to tell the story of the royal women who risked everything to flee the brutality of one of the world’s most powerful men. In four episodes, drawing on thousands of pages of secret correspondence and never-before-heard audio recordings, “The Runaway Princesses” takes listeners behind palace walls, revealing a story of astonishing courage and cruelty.

"The Runaway Princesses" is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Subscribers to The New Yorker have early, ad-free access to all episodes. Visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey in the Dark listeners, it's Madeline Barron. We're hard at work reporting season 3 of in the dark.
0:06.0	But while you wait, we're bringing you an amazing story we made with our colleague at the New Yorker, Heidi Blake.
0:11.0	So Heidi, where do we start? Well, it starts with the story of a princess who
0:17.6	decided to run away. My name is Littif al-Machtum. My father is the Prime Minister of UAE and the ruler of Dubai.
0:26.5	Princess Latif's father is one of the world's richest people.
0:30.7	His wives and children live in unbelievable luxury, but the family's rules for
0:36.2	women can be suffocating, and defying them can mean brutal punishment.
0:42.4	Princess Latifah wanted to escape.
0:45.0	In February of 2018, she sneaked over to a friend's apartment and recorded this video.
0:50.0	So I need to make this video in case I don't make it.
0:55.0	Her escape plan involved an inflatable dinghy and jet skis and a yacht
1:06.2	secretly waiting out in the Indian Ocean. She left the video with friends. She
1:11.5	told them to release it if anything went wrong.
1:14.0	And if you are watching this video, it's not such a good thing.
1:18.0	Either I'm dead or I'm in a very, very bad situation. Where are they?
1:26.0	What have they done to them?
1:28.0	Are they dead?
1:29.0	Are they not dead?
1:30.0	How did this video get to us?
1:31.0	What the hell do we do now?
1:33.2	She said, I don't know what's happening outside, I hear gun shots, men, and then we just heard nothing.
1:38.9	It was just a complete blankie.
	...

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