logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2024
14m 7s

From In the Dark: The Runaway Princesses

The New Yorker
About this episode

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. To keep listening, follow In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.


Up next
Today
How the Trad Wife Took Over
Scrutiny of the figure of the “trad wife” has hit a fever pitch. These influencers’ accounts feature kempt, feminine women embracing hyper-traditional roles in marriage and home-making—and, in doing so, garnering millions of followers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson ... Show More
41m 20s
Oct 2
One Paul Thomas Anderson Film After Another
Over the course of his three-decade career, the director Paul Thomas Anderson has dramatized the nineteen-seventies porn industry (“Boogie Nights”), the Californian oil boom (“There Will Be Blood”), and a mid-century London fashion house (“Phantom Thread”). Now he’s trained his g ... Show More
48m 44s
Sep 25
What's Cooking?
In contemporary cookbooks—and in the burgeoning realm of online cooking content—there’s often a life style on display alongside the recipes. Samin Nosrat is a fixture of this landscape, and her new book, “Good Things,” aims to pick up where her mega-best-seller “Salt, Fat, Acid, ... Show More
48m 24s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2024
32. Princess Caraboo - Fake Princess
Lucy Worsley and her all-female team of detectives travel back in time to meet con artists, hoaxers and crooks from across the world. Women living extraordinary lives in a world made for men.In this episode of Lady Swindlers, Lucy meets Princess Caraboo, a woman abducted from pal ... Show More
28m 50s
Nov 2024
Society Girl - the book! ft. Sanam Maher
Announcing: Society Girl -- A Tale of Sex, Lies and Scandal, the new book by Saba Imtiaz & Tooba Masood-Khan (Roli Books, 2024). The book explores the circumstances around the death of the poet and former civil servant Mustafa Zaidi in October 1970, and the ensuing scandal that b ... Show More
1h 1m
Oct 2024
35. Women Who Dare
Lucy Worsley, historian Professor Rosalind Crone and author and journalist Helen Lewis, explore the lives of four notorious Lady Swindlers. They’ll be discussing underworld boss Tilly Devine, fake heiress Violet Charlesworth, queen of shoplifting Alice Diamond and fake Princess M ... Show More
28m 31s
Mar 2024
Adventures of a Mughal Princess
In the British Library, there is a manuscript copy of the memoir of Princess Gulbadan, the only surviving female-authored memoir from the Mughal Empire. In it, Gulbadan tells her extraordinary story: from growing up in a multi-cultural society, via life in a walled harem, to an u ... Show More
38m 6s
Oct 2024
34. Violet Charlesworth - Fake Heiress
In this episode of Lady Swindlers, Lucy Worsley meets Violet Charlesworth, an heiress with a taste for the high life. From her family home in North Wales, Violet drives the length and breadth of the country in her expensive motorcars, accompanied by pedigree pooches and dripping ... Show More
27m 46s
Jan 2022
Nicholas Jubber, "The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales" (John Murray, 2022)
In The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales (John Murray, 2022), Nick Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy tales: inventors, thieves, rebels and forgotten geniuses who gave us classic tales such as 'Cinderella', 'Han ... Show More
54m 53s
Mar 2024
58: Murder House: The Korean Cannibal Gang and the Woman Who Escaped Them
Rule #1: We Hate The Rich. Rule #2: Death is the only thing that awaits he who betrays this group. Rule #3: Never trust a woman, not even your own mother. This is the story of the Chijon Family, South Korea's most infamous gang, and the woman they kidnapped who lead to their undo ... Show More
50m 24s
Dec 2024
40. By Hook or by Crook
Lucy Worsle digs into the lives of bold women who choose - by hook or by crook - to escape a life of poverty, misfortune and hardship. This episode highlights the fascinating tales of four invincible women. Sophie Lyons, a bank robber who, by the power of the American Dream, turn ... Show More
27m 58s
Sep 9
Seondeok of Silla: Becoming a Queen
Queen Seondeok of Silla ruled her country with good will and fairness but her time as leader was not without challenges. In this story we hear about a time when a rival leader tried to take Queen Seondeok's throne by saying a falling star proves that she should not lead, and how ... Show More
19m 11s