One of my favorite royal books of all time is Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Brown wrote the book ten years after Diana’s 1997 death, and this was after Brown covered Diana for Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. The Diana Chronicles manages to be very sympathetic towards Diana, yet resists the urge to canonize her or pour sugar on Diana’s problematic behavior. It’s a great read, very dishy. So I’m looking forward to this: Brown has written a follow-up book called The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor – The Truth and Turmoil. The Windsors should be very worried.
Buckingham Palace is braced for the release of another book promising ‘powerful revelations’ about the Royal Family in the Queen’s jubilee year. Magazine editor Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers: Inside The House Of Windsor – The Truth And The Turmoil will be published in April – just months before Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir.
The sequel to Miss Brown’s bestseller The Diana Chronicles, which was released in 2007, is ‘full of nuanced details and searing insight’, according to Penguin. The publisher said it would tell ‘the real story’ of the Royal Family over the 25 years since the death of Princess Diana. The title will ‘irrevocably change the way readers perceive and understand the Royal Family’, it added.
The book is said to track the Queen’s ‘loosening grip’ on the monarchy and is based on the former Vanity Fair editor’s ‘years of research and intimate access’. It will cover allegations surrounding Prince Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Harry and Meghan’s decision to quit as senior royals.
What was great about The Diana Chronicles is that it was very readable but you could still feel like it was well-sourced. Brown still has a lot of connections from her Vanity Fair and Tatler days, and as we’ve seen in recent years, a lot of those courtiers and aristocrats have been dying to talk to someone. I wonder just how far she’ll go – will she go into Rose Hanbury and the rumors about the state of the Cambridges’ marriage? Will she go into the real reasons why Harry and Meghan left? If anyone can alter the current (dumbf–k) royal gossip narratives, it’s Tina Brown. I’m looking forward to this.
Excited to announce my new book, The Palace Papers-Inside the House of Windsor-the Truth and the Turmoil, my sequel to The Diana Chronicles. Read how the monarchy tried to preserve itself amidst explosive headlines. Now available for preorder: https://t.co/bylkSEpF2V pic.twitter.com/NFX6jdaafu
— Tina Brown (@TinaBrownLM) September 30, 2021
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
I’m not sure what she could tell us about Meghan and Harry. I’ve seen her on CBS This Morning and she just parrots the tabloid/Palace line about the situation. So I’m not enthusiastic that this book is going to shed any new light on the Royal Family’s behaviour towards Meghan.
Its going to be another h&m hit piece
I guess it depends on her sources. If her sources are aristocrats or people from the palace that hate Meghan, then not sure how it’ll be different than the tabloids. Hopefully, that’s not the case. @nic919- just saw your comment and we’re on the same page
ITA. A lot of Brown’s comments about H & M have been pretty derisive. I don’t think she’s going to show support or understanding to Harry & Meghan. It’s possible, but it seems unlikely, that a 15 year old William, came up with the idea for Diana to auction off her dresses for charity as suggested in this story by Brown. I couldn’t find any reference from Diana herself saying that back then. Get the feeling Brown’s been communicating with TOB.
https://www.tatler.com/article/tina-brown-princess-diana-60th-birthday
Actually in the forward in the auction catalogue, Diana wrote that it was an idea of William’s
“It was William’s idea” was publicized in real time as hype for the dress auction. Diana was still alive, although IIRC it was only weeks before her death and so the story was probably amplified in the aftermath. Was it true? 🤷♀️ I guess only William knows. But even if it was just a stunt to burnish his 15-year-old reputation, it was a stunt that Diana was initially in on.
Worthpoint had an image of the foreword-if deciphered correctly..
“The inspiration for this wonderful sale comes from just one person; our son William.”
I don’t know that it means William said Mum, you should auction off your dresses for charity. Doesn’t sound like Basher’s style. He may have. We’ll never know for sure.
@Kazzz you are right. It was in the catalog introduction that Diana wrote. So I will take her word for it.
This is the image.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/princess-diana-dresses-1997-christies-1823273183
Not the point, but it’s incredible to me that at 15, William was the one to come up with such a good, creative idea— that would also raise tons of £!— but can’t seem to do so now. I’ve said for a while that Kate should do something like this, albeit on a much smaller scale. If she sold some of her gowns, there are enough people who love her who would definitely buy them, especially some of the “iconic” (well, in their minds, lol) Packhams.
It would obviously only bring in a fraction of however much Diana’s sold for, but it would be *something*, and maybe two of her patronages wouldn’t have had to shut down— or at the very least, it could have bought them more time.
It’s not even just the dresses; commenters on here have come up with so, so many great ideas over the years. Apparently nobody at KP reads CB which is a shame because there have been some really excellent suggestions here.
I remember reading about Diana falling out with Elton John over who had the idea for the dress auction. He claimed it was his suggestion and was annoyed when she gave all the credit to William.
@Snappyfish said:
“@Kazzz you are right. It was in the catalog introduction that Diana wrote. So I will take her word for it.”
Most likely, Elton John suggested the idea to Diana, and she discussed it with young William, and he was supportive. Since her first-born son’s support meant a lot to her at that time, perhaps that’s why Diana decided to exclusively attribute the idea to William.
In that way, maybe Diana felt there might be less palace disapproval. Unfortunately, her seemingly strategic decision to give William all the credit, hurt her friendship with Elton.
Exactly Amy Bee. I expect this will be very palace friendly especially due to its release date prior to the jubilee. If the Fail etc are promoting it then thats suspect. Notice how palace friendly finding freedom was promoted much more than than Lacey’s Battle of Brothers which detailed less flattering portrayal of William & Kate.
I suspect it will be a hype piece about how the monarchy remodelled after Diana’s death & despite ups and downs (eg Andrew) monarchy is in good hands ultimately with the Cambridges who are the key to modern monarchy etc.
Tina’s comments to the Torygraph & on CBS re Sussexit shows shes bought the tabloid line on Sussexit & she will probably say Meghan & Harry didn’t understand their roles & Harry learnt wrong lessons from Diana etc etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tina even thinks Meghan should have considered herself lucky to have been allowed to marry in.
I don’t expect her to get how misogynoir & xenophobia was deployed against Meghan or to delve much into how the palace briefed against her although she did comment on issue of h&m overshadowing the others back in 2018
I’m reading everyone’s comments and I see the points made that will just be a piece to hit H&M over the head with. I hope that’s wrong. I’m really looking forward to some tea. It’s 2021. Time to stop being afraid of the establishment.
@Seraphina, I’m with you- I hope it will be good. It’s been years since I read her book about Diana, so I don’t remember it well, but I definitely don’t think I came away thinking it had been super-biased, to the point of sounding like palace propaganda, that so many others have been.
I also haven’t seen any of her more recent statements that the other commenters here are referring to, so they know better than I do what her mindset about the Sussexes has been, but I really, really HOPE she’s fair to Harry and Meghan.
I’m reading these comments to and by where And how Tina sources I cannot see how she could be fair to H&M. She would burn most of her bridges. She may be snarky towards Kate, but fine towards the queen and cam. Horrible towards Meghan.
I wonder if she would express “approval” of William telling Harry to “slow down.” Is she in the William is always right school? I hope not.
I saw her on CBS This Morning too and completely agree that she parrots the tabloid/Palace lies. PRH’s description of The Palace Papers also included these interesting words “..the ascendance of the resolute Kate Middleton..” So I’m guessing camp Middleton acted as one of the Palace sources for this book which just means more H&M bashing. I’ll wait for H’s memoir, thanks.
‘The ascendance of the resolute Kate Middleton’ as a quote is interesting for sure. I’m curious if her views will be similar to those of Tom Sykes from the dailybeast, or if they have similar aristocratic sources.
I went back and read a Time article by Brown that was written before the wedding. She said the remarkable thing about Meghan is her tenacity, which could be interpreted as a strength but not necessarily. She goes on to say Meghan dumped her starter husband bc he was never destined for the top, upped her brand visibility with the tig, and was ascending into being a cool activist. So yeah… the words tenacity, destined for the top, upped, and ascending seem to suggest Brown viewed Meghan as someone climbing to the top with a clear plan even before the wedding. So I guess we’ll see if that view has changed over the past few years or strengthened.
Tina Brown founded the Daily Beast! Literally. She’s not there anymore, hasn’t been for awhile, but I wonder if maybe she had a hand in hiring Tom Sykes. They def run in the same circles.
@Jais – nobody except Meghan’s close friends knows why the marriage ended and they’re keeping very tight-lipped about it. It could be that he didn’t fully support her career and possibly resented the fact that she was becoming the more successful one in the marriage. Perhaps there was infidelity on his part, it was a long-distance relationship after all. Maybe she was the one doing all the flying back and forth while he stayed put in LA. I don’t think Tina has an inside line on why the divorce happened any more than we do, just conjecture.
Exactly @jaded! Why would she jump to this conclusion that Meghan dumped him after landing suits bc he wasn’t destined for the top unless it fit a specific narrative? Frankly, it’s misogynistic.
Looked at Tatler and Brown’s book apparently will “explore the glittering, unquestionable rise of the Duchess of Cambridge.” I sh*t you not. But if you have to unquestionably rise on the back of a glittering disco ball dress and a planted story about your SIL making you cry, then, how high is that rise really?
That said, there’s a possibility that this will be a more fair account than I’m imagining?
@ Jaded, you are absolutely right!! No one knows why her first marriage didn’t work out. Meghan, to me, seems like a woman who would give anything she is involved with 110%, which includes her first marriage. As for these hacks that say otherwise, like she was looking for someone to elevate her, that’s complete BS, to me. She just happened to meet Harry and they fell in love!! You can’t control who you loved you just do. And they are smitten with each other, its abundantly that they very much love each other. You can’t fake the admiration and love that they have when they look at each other!!!
I hope that TB does an honest respective in the house of Windsor, since no one else is willing to be honest about the terrible time Harry and Meghan have been treated. And how abhorrently they treated Meghan from the word “go!”!!
@Sure and @Jais,
“the ascendance of the resolute Kate Middleton..”
“the glittering, unquestionable rise of the Duchess of Cambridge.”
Welp, my hopes that this book was going to be different from ones written by other palace stenographers, and more fair and honest, were just lowered quite a bit after reading those descriptions.
I’ll still give it a chance, but if that’s truly how she sees Kate…obviously it’s not a good sign. And I have been SO EXCITED ever since this book was announced.
I guess now I’m hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Sigh.
So, I looked back at Tatler and the quote about Kate’s glittering, unquestionable rise is actually attributed to a Telegraph article about the book, which is interesting. A Kirkus review of the book does not mention this quote at all.
Came back to say penguin random house says it covers “the ascendance of the resolute Kate Middleton,” which is also what town and country quotes. The only place I see that it covers “the glittering, unquestionable rise of the Duchess of Cambridge” is from the Telegraph, which was then quoted in Tatler. So did the Telegraph literally just embellish the original quote from the publisher for its audience, essentially asserting a glittering, unquestionable rise that was never actually stated by Tina Brown?
Maybe the Telegraph just has another publishing source they’re using? Idk it’s just weird but seriously funny if the Telegraph writer did embellish bc clearly they’re still reeling from last week’s glittery dress.
Also, I clearly had too much free time today to look up this one random detail that is probably not that big of a deal.
@Jais if the quotes are taken out of context, twisted, or “embellished” — that’s right on brand for the BM, so.
@Jais said:
“[Brown] goes on to say Meghan dumped her starter husband bc he was never destined for the top, upped her brand visibility with the tig, and was ascending into being a cool activist…”
Right @Jais, this is a similar jealous, belittling tone toward Meghan which palace courtiers have always exhibited.
In my opinion, from all that I’ve gleaned in various reports and via my own observations, Trevor Engelson was seemingly possessive toward Meghan. Let’s remember that he reportedly once called girlfriend, Meg, “the hottest chick in L.A.” At only 23 when she met Trevor, Meghan was both impressionable and ambitious. Their shared ambition is how they hooked up in the first place.
Still, reportedly Trevor was very reluctant to give Meg any prominent or visible roles in projects he was working on. That could be for a variety of reasons, but I think it was mostly because he wanted to keep Meg for himself. In a related way, he was probably reluctant to see her achieve greater career success than he had.
Far from Meg dumping Trevor when she landed Suits, it was soon after she aced the audition and got the part in Suits, in mid-2010, that Trevor proposed to Meghan. This was after they’d been together for about 7 years. My take is that Trevor knew the Suits production team was top-notch, and that his Meg had finally landed a keeper. So he proposed in order to hold onto her.
I’m sure they were both ‘in love’ at that time too. After being together for 7 years, you either decide to cement the relationship, or part ways. Meghan was apparently too young and inexperienced, and feeling ‘in love,’ to realize she should have focused more on her new gig to see where it would take her, before tying herself into a long distance marriage.
Once she got a taste of cosmopolitan Toronto, a new set of upscale friends, and the great happening vibe on the closeknit Suits set, I can see Meghan getting tired of Trevor’s possessiveness, and of Ninaki Priddy’s hanger-on jealousies.
^^ Actually, Meghan and Trevor were together for 5 years by 2010. I also meant to point out, as we all know: Meghan Markle was already a ‘cool activist’ at the age of 12.
Plus, her brilliant Tig creation was her first ‘beloved baby,’ as well as a savvy, much needed investment in her future post-Suits. All actors on successful TV shows know the importance of building viable investments in their future while big paychecks are still on tap.
I’m interested because the Diana book was reasonably objective, but all of these types of books are biased to some extent. Some just much more so than others. So more than anything, it’s going to be about who’s side she takes, most probably.
Which will be william and kate’s so it automatically will be a h&m hit piece.
Am curious to also see how she covers Will and Kate.
Brown had some very iffy claims about Diana in the book. I am not a fan of the book though it was a lot more objective than Bedell Smith’s or Ingrid Seward’s.
Brown was obsessed with Diana’s sex life. It was weird.
Seen the same and agree!
And worse still it will probably be the usual overpraise of Kate and William and the usual cliches about them.
@ Tessa, which is extremely tiring!! I missed Fridays posts but the article claiming that KKKWeen is copying Meghan and it’s a good play still has my head spinning!! The fact that DW is claiming that the KKWeen is the superstar that Meghan wanted to be is so disgusting!!! I just can’t understand the total puffing you of these two who consistently fail to do the bare minimum, and that alone is a stretch!! If she puffs up Baldimort, you will see that she knows has and will always support the that useless couple to the end of her days, just like all of the other Harry and Meghan haters who refuse to allow them their peace and the recognition that they apparently deserve.
Tina Brown praised the Oprah interview and said it showed who was the real Queen, it’s Oprah. This book seems more “fall of the House of Windsor” or the Windsor version of the Pentagon Papers or Paradise Papers. Nothing indicates it will solely dwell on the Sussexes.
@Truthiness that’s what I’ve been thinking/hoping as well. The Sussexes will obviously be discussed, but imo this book is going to cover a LOT of ground and they won’t be the focus of the book by any means. It says she’s delving into the past 25 years, and MM didn’t come onto the scene until late 2016. I so hope it’s good 🤞
@Truthiness – true (lol), to the extent this book focuses on the Windsors in general, it could
be good. I know we’ve been hearing about it for years now, so I don’t think the Sussexes are the focus.
^^ Based on things Tina Brown has said regarding Harry & Meghan in recent years, I agree with above comments by first poster, @Amy Bee. TB tends to be a gossipy royalist in her views. That said, I’ll be interested to read her upcoming book, via a library copy. I won’t buy it.
I’m going to re-familiarize myself with the Diana Chronicles book as well, via the library. I want to remember what my initial impressions were. I recall thinking when I first read it, that it was revealing in some ways, but also overly sympathetic toward the firm.
I am excited because this is the first I heard of her 2007 book so I will have some reading to catch up on I also like the title of her book.
HMmmmmmm, I wonder how far she will go. Maybe it’s this book causing the BRF to be worried and not Harry’s. It will be easier to give full full gossip in Palace Papers because it will be difficult to pinpoint who the sources are as opposed to Harry’s.
I have read Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles and found it well researched, balanced and objective. So much so that I recommended it to Meghan when she got engaged so that she could be well prepared for what she would be up against in the House of Windsor and the very powerful media.
I have not followed Tina Brown’s utterances since then but I will buy the book and hope that it is a good as her Diana book. She had more of an insider knowledge with Diana, not sure if she is still really within these circles. If I remember correctly, she revealed some of her sources. This book will not just be about Meghan and Harry, she will probably put an equal focus on the other main members of the family too.
I think Sarah Bradford’s Diana book was the best. Frances’ “friend’s” quote was used instead of Kydd herself. Frances Shand in her book which was available when Bradford did research, said she never interfered or asked Diana questions, she said it was “time” for Diana to marry and did not want to interfere. THe “friend” Claimed Frances did or tried to.
Why did Bradford not use Frances’ testimony instead of the hearsay she used? Then she claimed Diana was the woman in the Royal Train with CHarles, even though Diana was seen someplace else that night and journalists had proof it was Camilla. SOmething off there with Brown’s claims.
@princessK……is there something you want to share with the class? Do you know Meghan??
The big difference from Diana is that Meghan is both biracial and American, which is going to be hard for Tina to agree with. When it comes down to it, She’s going to be part of keeping the rich white folks status quo which means putting down H&M and holding up W&K.
Spot on and bravo. What else is there to say? It’s one thing for a white woman to write a book about a person who enjoyed unambiguous affection from the BM and achieved near-sainthood after her death. It’s quite another thing for that same white (British) woman to write a book about an American biracial figure who has worked hard all her life and had to face a hostile country and its “press” with no help from anyone but her husband. As we know, her mother and all her friends had to maintain silence, as dictated by the palace. Nothing I’ve heard so far from Tina Brown indicates that she has the vision, nuance, or perspective to see the past 5 years as anything other than as a white British woman. Utterly limited.
^^ Honestly, as others have said, Tina Brown’s tone tends toward royalist views, with a gossipy twist. I can’t see any well-established media personality like Brown being overtly truthful against the British monarchy. Brown used to helm The Tatler, then Vanity Fair, then The New Yorker.
Unless she takes a deep dive in to whatever it is that the press is hiding about william i will have to pass
I’m more interested/worried about how she’ll frame the narrative around Andrew. It says she’ll go into his friendship with Epstein— is she going to try to defend or excuse him? Or maybe she won’t go into the details of his actual connection to Epstein, but try to “explain” why Elizabeth is so adamant about protecting him.
In my opinion, Elizabeth’s image has taken a really hard hit because of her shielding Andrew at all costs. Trying to redeem her in the eyes of the general public and remove the taint in her jubilee year seems like something the royal establishment would be eager to do through a semi-reputable source.
Brown may “blame” the trafficked woman. I see a pattern going on with this to “defend” Andrew.
That’s the thing. I suspect it will be a whitewash of Liz’s protection of Andrew pitching it as about a vulnerable elderly mother etc who has always put duty first, making ‘rare’ error in judgement’ etc. Again the timing of when this is coming out & being promoted by the rota tells me this isn’t a book for the palace to fear. Plus with ongoing case Tina would have to tread carefully when talking about Virginia’s allegations so I don’t see it examining the relationship with Epstein that much.
And I doubt it will cover why William suddenly has better relationship with the press or how Camilla’s rep was rehabbed & what the price of both of these were.
As for Meghan & Harry I don’t expect positive commentary but a take that points out the very obvious briefing the palace did against her (which is even on court record) or pointing out the palace’s double standards in their treatment compared to Andrew seems to be too much for all royal commentators.
If it details the power struggle that’s been happening since Geidt was ousted & Philip
retired that might be interesting but I’m not expecting any great revelations from this book.
That right there is the issue–i.e., going into ‘the friendship with Epstein’. Andrew’s done a lot more wrong than have a friendship with a trafficker! He was a customer of Epstein’s, he had sex with those trafficked girls and women. That’s what she–and all other British journos–need to go into.
@BeanieBean it drives me batsh!t crazy that the British media constantly frames the problem as “Andrew’s friendship with Epstein.” I mean, no, obviously the friendship wasn’t great, but that’s not the main problem here! And they know it.
If it was ONLY the fact that they were friends, it wouldn’t have helped Andrew’s image, but to disingenuously pretend the friendship alone is the issue is so frustrating. Why are they going out of their way to make Andrew sound as good as possible? You *know* that at least some (and probably most) of the people writing this nonsense knows damn well that Andrew is guilty of what he’s accused of doing.
They always make it sound like his friendship is the only issue re: Epstein and at this point it’s just flat-out insulting to readers, especially as Andrew’s legal battle is ramping up.
If her sources are courtiers I don’t see how it’s going to be anything more than a bash fest of Meghan.
Exactly @Nic. H&M aren’t talking to her I’m assuming so anything she says about their situation will be very one-sided and very pro-royals. I’m expecting lots of “Harry didnt understand his role” and “Meghan wanted to be the star of the family” etc.
Harry who is a blood royal and has been a key royal for 36 years of his live didn’t understand his role?
Very true. But on the other hand, the courtiers have to know who the “Royal Racist” is (my personal opinion is that they all are, but that Charles or William or both made the comments to Harry specifically). Maybe she’ll reveal details on that, and what Kate said to make Meghan cry, why H&M fired that person in the middle of the night, and something about the “bullying” allegations.
I’m not holding out for much objectivity, but I do think it’s possible to personally dislike individuals but write a fairly even handed account of what was happening behind closed doors. The best example I can think of is Woodward and his books about the Trump admin. Admittedly I haven’t read any of his books because I don’t want to fall into a cycle of depression reading about how Trump f-cked everything up, but my general impression from media coverage is that he kind of reported what was said and didn’t venture into political criticism.
But CBers who’ve actually read the Woodward books, please please correct me if I’m totally off base.
Laraw, Woodward stuck to reporting, even though he is a conservative. He was reporting very disturbing facts where there is hardly any sympathy, I appreciate how he was able to play Trump like a fiddle. Every damn time! Trump stupidly always came back for more, trying to get a “good Woodward take” on his presidency, like a Woodward seal of approval. I am no conservative, in my opinion Woodward only pulls his punches in drawing conclusions about the 87,959 f-ked up situations he reported, at least those situations made it to print.
Truthiness: Shows how dumb trump is & how he clearly never read ‘All the President’s Men’, thinking he’d get a ‘good take’ on his presidency. What a joke.
Woodward works some magic on Presidents and politicians. They always spill the beans and it’s not like they don’t know him. It’s amazing. Great historical records.
I know nothing of Tina Brown, but if she is a middle-aged/old, white lady with royalists leanings, I would be surprised if she was fair in regards to Harry/Meghan situation. I think a clever man like Robert Lacey is able to play both sides, especially when speaking to american outlets, but I do not recall Tina Brown ever slightly coming in the defense of them or even both siding the argument…so, if she delivered us the truth, it would be a surprise
Whoever has a twitter, tell her Harry and Meghan´s hitjobs are a dozen a dime these days, so if she is REALLY serious author, she should be using some of her critical thinking skills and not tell us what we already have heard.
PS: I really want a book on the Windsors that absouletly told the truth. The backstabbing. The insecurities. The self serving nature of the instituttion. The contract with the tabloids. The cheating of husbands and the expected doormating of wives. The rage monster true self…but this book ain´t it, I am afraid.
I think this book is being put out in a response to harry’s memoir. Just saying
I went to check her twitter replies and the bots were already accusing her of ” destroying the poor Queens jubileum as those ghastly Sussexes” and I call them bots because in the years of our Lord 2021 I do not see anyone defending the BRF like they were some helpless folks as sane human beings anymore…so, if you are right, Tina Brown is alreadxy making a mess out of herself.
It’s not. This book has been talked about for a while. It’s just now got a release date. I think it was first mentioned late 2019 or early 2020.
Being released a couple of weeks before W & K’s anniversary it will probably have complimentary comments about the Cambridge’s.
Tina Brown said in an interview from Feb 2020 that she was working on this and that she was interested in whether the monarchy would survive Elizabeth’s death.
@Ginger—
That’s really interesting about the timing of the book. 2019/2020 was the peak of Sussexit— maybe Brown was one of those people who didn’t expect Harry to leave and thought she could get a hot scoop on the story once the furor died down. She was probably “blindsided” by Harry leaving, the Sussexes’ meteoric success (Netflix, Spotify, buying a house, all that) and totally didn’t anticipate how deep H&M would go in the Oprah interview. That, compounded with BLM at the forefront of national discourse in the states?
Here’s one thing I didn’t consider— after Sussexit, Brown was also cut off from H&M’s movements and no longer had insider knowledge. Her connections are with the RF courtiers, not the circles that H&M occupy today. This cutting off of access seems to be such a sore point for the BM that they just CANNOT let go. I think the complaints about Harry not knowing his royal duties etc is actually about Harry just trashing the invisible contract. In terms of dutu and service, Harry is doing the exact same thing as he was doing in the UK, only with more range and impact.
The RR can’t come outright and say they’re pissed off that they no longer have preferential treatment by the RF, so it all has to be coded in terms of “duty.” And one of the implicit “duties” the RF must provide is to generate headlines for the BM— that’s how Elizabeth set it up.
@Pao, Tina’s book was announced way before Harry’s was; she’s been working on it for a while.
Others are saying the timing could be Jubilee-related, but I just don’t think that’s enough of a factor to influence the publisher? I could be wrong, but it seems to me as if a small handful of courtiers are the only ones who view the Jubilee as an enormous deal. Most people don’t even know it exists!
I want a book exposing the RF as well. We need someone that isn’t a royalist to write it. These royalist want to keep their sources so they will always be on the palaces side.
I don’t think Brown will be the person to do it. She hedges her bets IMO.
@ Ginger, from your mouth to Gods ears, right!!!
I’m not sure “middle-aged/old white lady” is a great differentiator when you’re uplifting in comparison a 77 year old white man, yes, even if you think he’s “clever”.
You’re claiming what Tina Brown is or isn’t capable of, what she’s has done or not done (that you recall) while also saying you don’t know anything about her.
I don’t know what this book is going to be like, and I agree we’re not going to get any real truth telling until it comes from someone outside the royal system. And when/if it comes, I don’t think the writer’s ability to cover the topic will depend on their gender, or age for that matter.
@North of Boston
I have been absolutely disgusted by the hatred that comes from “middle-aged/old white”ladies when it comes to Meghan because, believe it or not, I expected nothing different from the hordes of old white men, but yes- and if that makes me stupid, so be it- but I did expect some sympathy from women of all races .
So, while your observation has some veracity in theory, it is not so in reality, which the coverage of Meghan illustrates. People have their bias and those bias can change perspectives, so things like race and gender DO have some impact on real life, yes and they do appear in how the media is reporting the matter
Moreover, since I DO NOT know Tina Brown other than that she is 1) old and 2) old lady, I based on my above-explained observations, remarked skepticism on her being fair to Meghan, although I also said I would be gladly surprised if she did, which you forgot to mention.
@Moderately Wealthy perhaps you should take a look at Brown’s bona fides before throwing her under the bus. Of all the royal reporters, she is by far the most impartial and probably the most well connected.
@MAC this is annoying. I don’t throw anyone under the bus. I simply said I don’t know her other than her gender,age and race and that this alone makes me skeptical whether she will be fair since most of people sharing her gender, age and race hlthat deals with RF has shown to be far from fair, adding that I hope to be pleasantly surprised by her take if it is an intelligent one while not holding my breath- where on Earth is THIS throwing someone under the bus?
But anyway, only when she releases the book the people now caping for her will be proved right or wrong so it is really best to wait than to invest too much energy into this discussion
@Moderatelywealthy – the thing is you’re making assumptions about age, gender and race. Do you know the demographics of those posting here? I would bet most of them are women. From some of the experiences that have been shared here, I’d bet that there are older people here. And I’ll bet there are some white people here, too. And, yet everyone here is strongly pro-Meghan.
@Eurydice
Obviously speaking about women in the media and social media that make Meghan bashing their favorite game. They are mostly white and older yes. Joan Collins, that crazy ex-wife of a Lord, that crazy ex wife of the Fantastic Four actor, all the ladies of the RR, the KKKate fans on twitter…almost all of one demographic, yes.
We all know here is the exception, not the rule. I have no idea after ALL that happened, why my saying I will not hold my breath this time around, but will gladly be surprised if Tina Brown is clever enough to see through the propaganda, why this is suddenly so offensive?
give me a break
Yes, I am very disturbed by what I saw. I am not generalizing at all. I am yet to see a WoC going on TV to blast Meghan, and yet I have seen white women doing it with so much gusto, over and over again…anyway, we shall wait and see.
ModeratelyWealthy: I fear you’ll probably be proven correct about the book. Just the fact that the D. Fail article above doesn’t mention one “the queen is blind sighted” or “another book during her jubilee” or “scandalous” or any other statements which greeted Harry’s book announcement tells me everything I need to know.
I expect it be another trashing of MM and no way she touches anything about Rose.
Another one trying to profit off of H&M….H&M are gone, why don’t they focus on those still in the UK? jeez………I guess no one would care if H&M aren’t somehow included in yet another book!
@VS typically I would agree with this, but Tina’s book isn’t going to focus on the Sussexes, not by any means. They’ll obviously be discussed, but she’s going to cover the past 25 years, so I don’t see this book as profiting off of them the way so many of the others have been.
Just wait until the initial excerpts get released, I’ll bet they’ll focus primarily on H & M because T. Brown won’t go into William’s extramarital dalliances or the queen’s protection of Andrew, or Andrew’s activities and lawsuit.
@Debbie I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right and excerpts focus on H&M, simply because they sell better than anyone else in that family and anything their names are attached to automatically attract interest. I hope you’re wrong about Tina staying away from the rest of the family’s dirty laundry, especially William’s infidelity, but we won’t know until it’s out. I was super disappointed with FF, but Tina Brown is in a different league, so I’m hoping it will be a lot better.
I assume she is British, so white, and British, and chummy with the palace staff and aristocratics. Yeah. This book is going to be another hit piece oh Harry and Meghan because white folks stick together to bring down black folks
Some of the most vicious attacks on Diana, latter parroted against Madame Duchess, were originally written by Brown. Many older white women despise Meghan. I expect her to bend over backwards to label Meghan a self-promoter from *humble* origins.
I don’t doubt you. The only royals these people are interested in making look bad are Harry and his biracial family.the rest always walk away smelling like roses, no pun intended.
We still have to remember that Tina Brown is a rich white woman who even though she lives in America is part of the British establishment. I don’t think she will understand the racism, classism and xenophobia that made the Royal Family and its press unable to accept Meghan as part of the family and caused Harry to decide to leave the UK.
She doesn’t understand because she doesn’t have to and more importantly she doesn’t want to. These people are all cut from the same entitled white racist cloth.
I beg to differ, white people understand racism VERY WELL. Let’s not forget that they were somewhere in the vicinity when the system was set up, and they certainly understand the benefits derived from that system to this very day. That’s why, for example, a “Karen” calls the cops at an innocent person of color using their own cellphone, or they use tears as a weapon when being confronted by their own actions. They understand.
H & M have publicly spoken (Oprah) and Harry is writting his memoir so we are already getting the story from the horses mouth. The other royals who claim to operate on the ‘never complain,never explain’ are the ones who should be worried. H& M can simply deny any falsehoods from now on.
M&H leaving is pretty straightforward tome. They were unhappy and left. Over the years I’ve known people who left relationships, employment, situations for a multitude of reasons. In the end it’s your life and your choice. Plus H&M leaving has been covered extensively and continues. I’m more interested in the gossip that isn’t known or not really covered.
If her sources are the palace and aristocrats then it will the usual hit job since they all hate Meghan. The only book I am looking forward too is Harry’s memoir.
Let’s just hope William doesn’t get to her they way he got to Lacey.
Edit: just saw the comments about her on CBS. Nvm
@Layla I’m wondering if her comments about Harry and Meghan have aged a bit, and that possibly her tune has changed as she’s seen what they’ve accomplished in the past year?
This is what I’m hoping too @Lorelei.
@Jais, I mean, lots of people’s opinions probably shifted in the past WEEK, when the world saw how the reception Harry and Meghan got in NYC. I have no idea how long authors can continue to make edits before the final draft goes to print, but I guess we’ll find out in April!
If Brown downplays the white supremacy that fueled the racism, xenophobia and misogynoir against Harry being married to a biracial American multi-millionaire, her book can be consigned to the others as existing to protect the royal family, no matter how toxic and dysfunctional they CHOOSE to be.
Let me go look for leaked copy.
Royal biographies are just propaganda spoon fed by the chapter. I’m not interested in hers or anyone else’s.
I’ve read the Diana Chronicles a couple of times because it’s such a fascinating peek into the world of the sequestered upper classes, the people so rarified us peasants would never cross paths with them. I’m sorry to see in these comments that the new book is likely to be a Meghan hit piece. I won’t buy it if that’s the case but I’d love a Tina Brown book that gives us that same sort of voyeuristic glance into the inner workings of the RF.
Me too. I read her 2007 book when it came out, and would not describe her as a “royalist”. I could see her being the one to expose and explain.
After reading CB’s article, I immediately ordered the book. ✅ After reading the comments I almost cancelled the order, but I’ll wait a bit to see if we have more on her leanings.
Literally did the same, except I actually did cancel the book and am going to wait for some of the excerpts and interviews to come out and see if I change my mind.
She can’t do a positive spin on H&M without losing her insider status in the palace. The palace has already made examples of the media who openly are neutral.
Also the establishment did not like Diana but Diana was one of them. Tina understands that world.
I doubt Tina thinks of Meghan who is biracial and American as one of them. I would be highly surprised if she actually tackled the racism aspect because I really don’t think she gets it at all.
I disagreed with much she had to say about Diana.
Yes, the Diana Chronicles was wonderful. Neither Charles nor Diana came out looking great in that book and in a way it made me like both of them more.
I probably will read this book when it comes out (provided I’m not at number 100 or above on the library hold queue). What was great about TDC was that even though she clearly had an insider’s perspective, she didn’t parrot their lines.
@Bettyrose, I honestly don’t think it will be a hit piece either. Tina Brown has publicly stated that the Oprah interview was excellent. Here are some of her comments:
“It’s immensely damaging and I really think it’s extremely hard for them [the BRF] to refute a lot of the things that they said.” “We’re going to be talking about this interview for 20 years,” and “By the way, let’s all bow down to the real queen here, who is Oprah, I mean, what an extraordinary interview that was. It was just for the history books.”
I think Tina Brown has become Americanized enough to not be a simpering tool of the Courtiers and BRF like all the other royal commentators.
@Goodpuff, it’s also very possible that this is the final book she plans to write about the BRF, so she had to maintain her relationships with certain sources, but that her take might end up painting the BRF in an overall negative light because it doesn’t matter to her now if she burns bridges with the courtiers.
So much has happened re: the Sussexes in the past year alone that her initial thoughts on them leaving and the unhinged reaction from the British media really might have changed the way she sees them now. (And in any case, they’ll only be discussed toward the end of her book anyway, since she’s going back 25 years.)
@Jaded it’s too late for me to edit my comment above, but ITA with everything you said. Especially the last part about her attitude toward the courtiers.
We could be wrong and the book might be awful, but imo she’s our best shot at true “insider” information so I’m hoping for the best.
This will be so interesting. A lot has happened in the 25 years since Diana’s death – H&M were only there for a few years of it, so I don’t think there will be a hatchet job against Meghan. To me, the major players have been the Queen, Philip, Charles and influential courtiers. This leads to the rise of William and the evolution of Harry – and Meghan got caught in the middle. The way the major players have chosen to deal with these changes have led the RF family to where they are now – in a possibly precarious position – and I think that’s what Tina Brown will focus on. She was editor of The New Yorker and founder of the Daily Beast, so I don’t think she’ll be a 100% royal apologist.
It’s funny that everyone’s been in a panic over Harry’s memoir – they forget that Harry still loves his family, even if he doesn’t agree with them. I don’t think Tina’s book will have the advantage of that sentiment.
Brown I think is establishment and wants to curry favor with the royals she won’t burn any bridges. I think she was not exactly kind to Diana in her book, even claiming DIana was the one on the Royal Train, which makes absolutely no sense to me. C and D were not engaged, and journalists said it was Camilla. She also avoided using primary sources like Frances Shand Kydd’s various interviews.
I think people are making a lot of assumptions about Tina Brown based on her age, hair and skin color. I don’t think she’s the finest person on the planet, but her time at the New Yorker was anything but establishment – she pretty much broke the establishment model there, bringing in writers and artists who wouldn’t have had a voice there before. In general, if she’s part of any establishment, I’d say it’s the US East Coast, liberal establishment, which doesn’t make her a royalist or beholden to the RF.
@Eurydice was speaking about it upthread. was unpleasantly surprised to find many white, old, middle-aged ladies, among the fiercest detractors of Meghan, so I mentioned that, while I do not know Mr Brown´s work, that I was afraid she would be another one of those voices, but I also said I would be gladly surprised if she was more clever than that. Because I personally find very stupid of authors to be out there writing books about the same subject that are merely 1) recycled gossip or 2) royal propaganda.
If Tina Brown is to be the first among her peers ( because Omid Scobie status as a biracial man already makes him an outlier, so I am not counting him) to REALLY try to be fair and truthful, and not only repeat the gospel of the men in grey while adding some veiled snark, I am more than happy to have my skepticism proven wrong.
The reason her age and skin color matter is because someone like that has benefited from racism her whole life without ever acknowledging it or trying to support marginalized people. I’ve been observing expat English media kingpins like Tina Brown and Graydon Carter and Anna Wintour move through their various high-profile US gigs for over twenty years. They’re establishment moderate neoliberals, desperate snobs. They benefit from the status quo, and they don’t want it to change: they probably don’t even know the term misogynoir, let alone examine their own prejudice. The type of people who were friends with Harvey Weinstein.
This book will somewhat address the undeniable flaws in the monarchy, be very gossipy, ultimately be very positive toward the monarch herself, and offer nothing new or meaningful on Harry and Meghan. It certainly won’t take sides and won’t be anything revolutionary.
I will say since Tina Brown loves New York and Hollywood, she’s going to appreciate that royals have moved to the US like her. Or maybe it will activate self-loathing and jealousy in herself, and she’ll project it onto Harry and Meghan. Who knows.
@Emma – I really didn’t want to get into a defense of Tina Brown, because she’s not a perfect person by any means, and I don’t know her personally. All I know about her is the editorial choices she’s made in her various publications that I’ve read over the years. And I’ve watched her bring in diverse voices into publications that were the epitome of white privilege. She introduced artists that wouldn’t usually be published, she brought in women’s voices and Black voices, she founded the Women in the World Summit, which still meets 10 years later. Maybe it all comes from entitlement and self-loathing and snobbish whatever, but I’m not in her head so I can’t know that.
💯 she is a full fledged journalist, not a member of the RR. She was editor of the New Yorker, the complete opposite of people like Angela Levin. Her sources are really wide and deep and she keeps their names confidential. I would expect her to reach out to the Sussexes. Journalists far and wide saw the Oprah interview and took it for truth, saying what happened affected the Palace’s survival. Between the racism and the pedophilia, journalists OUGHT to be writing about how far the palace has fallen.
@Truthiness, ITA with you and @Eurydice. Obviously no one knows for sure what she thinks or will write, but out of anyone who would write a book like this about the BRF, I think she’s the one who I would trust the most to be fair and unbiased.
As you said, she’s in a completely different league than the others who have tried to profit from the Sussexes. And I’m sure this will be a very unpopular opinion, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Meghan allowed a friend or two to speak to Tina. Meghan is savvy enough to know that Brown is not like the moronic, irrelevant ROTA types. She’s in a totally different stratosphere.
Nobody knows, but I have higher hopes for her than I would with any other author covering them.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s just too early for all these books? I mean we’re talking about a situation that’s 1.5 years old. A lot has happened yes but there’s still a lot more to happen and too many of the players are still alive and well and emotions/feelings of everything are still “fresh”. So a book, even one by Tina Brown, isn’t going to give the complete picture because the picture isn’t even finished yet.
If it’s “all about Meghan” then it is too soon. But the monarchy existed before her and people hope it will exist after. Decisions have been made over the past 25 years that one has to wonder about. Why leave Charles to hang about waiting for Mum to die? Why indulge Andrew? How did William grow up to be an insufferable prig? What about Harry’s emotional journey?
A question I have is what’s with the cover of this book? Why put Camilla, Kate and Meghan right up there with Elizabeth? Is this just marketing, or is Tina tying this book to her earlier one about Diana? Is she saying something about how the Queen deals with “outsiders”?
I would agree if the questions you asked were answered but considering what Tina Brown has written about Meghan, this is not going to be the palace burning book people are hoping it is. As people have said, Tina is part of the establishment and will not “upset” them by criticising the establishment – and that includes the royals.
@Sophia – I don’t see why she wouldn’t answer those questions. From Tina Brown’s interview with the NYT back in 2/20, she said she had started working on the book back in the summer of 2019 and that she was specifically interested in how Charles seemed to be taking over the throne and making the decisions, how he dealt with Andrew and how he was dealing with Harry. Also, she said she was interested in the larger political picture in the UK, the instabilities brought about by Brexit, what that meant for the future of the monarchy and whether the British public could handle even more instability. You don’t have to be a puppet of the monarchy to acknowledge that its fall could be politically destabilizing. And given the amount of press the RF has gotten over 25 years, I don’t think anyone can worry at this point about criticizing the the royals – that genie left the bottle a long time ago.
@Eurydice, she (or her publisher) is marketing the book as a “sequel” to the Diana Chronicles. Which doesn’t make sense to me, since I think this book will have merit only if it places Diana’s story in the broader historical context. But maybe that’s the rationale behind the cover, along with the shrewd calculation that stories about royal women pitted against each other sell better than almost any others. Tina Brown is nothing if not shrewd.
What fascinates me is the choice of cover photos! QEII is looking DOWN. (Ostriching, maybe?) Kate is looking BACKWARD. (Seems right, she’s not exactly progressive.) But Camilla and Meghan are both clear-eyed and looking FORWARD. TB is adjacent (sort of) to Charles’ circle. Wonder if this book is a sneaky addition to the Camilla reputation rehab campaign?
I don’t know, that theory might give too much credit to everyone involved. But I agree that the cover photos were chosen intentionally. 🤔
@Eurydice – We’ll agree to disagree then. I remember people here hyping up Finding Freedom to be amazing only for almost everyone here to disown the book and not like it.
And I’m not a fan or enjoyer of royal books of any kind so maybe my own personal biases are leaking through. I can accept that.
@Sophia – We might disagree about Tina Brown, but I agree with you about royal books.
The thing is that I’ve been reading Tina Brown’s publications for much longer than I’ve been reading about the royals and despite the fact the she wrote a book about Diana, I’ve never considered her as part of the “industry” of royal experts. She’s been part of the US publishing scene for almost 40 years and her accomplishments have been much greater than gossiping about the royal family. So, I would read a book she wrote because I know from past experience that it would be more thoughtful than what comes out of royal experts – still, that doesn’t mean it would be 100% correct, either.
@Lionel – yes, that cover is weird and, as you say, the choice of photos, the expressions, the juxtaposition, all very strange. I wonder if that will be the final cover.
Yes, if it were centered on HM. Agree it’s too fresh. Instead It sounds like it’s examining the last 25 yrs.
So question: what has happened in the past 25 years? I only have the bare bones, listed in no order whatsoever.
– Charles campaigns to rehabilitate Camilla’s image and marries her.
– Kate waits around for ten years to marry William, flashes people during diplomatic visits, establishes early on she’s not going to work, and has babies.
– Harry goes to Afghanistan, two(?) deployments, is forced to leave active duty due to threats made by the Taliban on his life.
– This begins, by his own admission, the most depressing period of Harry’s life.
– Elizabeth does… what?
– Philip starts pulling away from managing the royal household after a while.
– Andrew and Epstein
– Charles and Andrew oust Geidt
The cover of the book suggests it’s going to be focused on the women in the RF. (By the way, where is Carole? I mean, she’s going to be grandmother to the king, right? Why include Meghan except to get people’s attention, increased visibility and designed for marketing? She comes in pretty late in this 25 year narrative.)
Politically, 25 years spans George W Bush to Trump. Right smack in the middle is Brexit, and Elizabeth’s plea to keep Scotland from leaving the UK.
I guess I’m just trying to put this all in a historical context (for my own benefit). Would greatly appreciate more knowledgeable CBers to chime in on the high watermarks of this 25 year time period.
@Laraw, I don’t think it’s necessarily a negative sign that Meghan is on the cover with the others; even though her time in the BRF has been relatively short, she’s certainly been influential! (And the cover is probably decided by the publisher? I’m not sure.)
Meghan’s placement on the cover could also signify her looking toward the future? I mean, she *does* do things so differently— and much better— than the BRF, so I don’t necessarily think the photo and its placement are bad signs.
Since the book will be covering the past 25 years, the Sussexes won’t even appear until late in the book, anyway. But I think if she wasn’t on the cover but Camilla and Kate both were, it would look strange and we’d be asking why Meghan *wasn’t* there. But who knows. I just really, really hope she is fair to the Sussexes.
@Sofia, ITA that it’s obviously way too early for any definitive take on the Sussexes, but w/r/t the book as a whole, I’m with Eurydice; the Sussexes won’t be the focus by any means. But It says she’s covering the past 25 years, so I’m also dying to see what she will say about all of the others, and especially the power shifts in regard to Charles and the Queen. Meghan didn’t arrive on the scene until 2016. so while Sussexit will be discussed for sure, it will only be one part of a much broader story.
I don’t know who this is, but people that look like her and celebrate the royals tend to really hate Meghan so.. I’ll pass. That being said, Meghan was in the family for less than 2 years and she’s already worthy of a pillar next to a Queen and two future queens? Her impact!!
Great angle. Interesting that Camilla is first too. My guess it’s more about that than the HM and TOB.
Yes, good point, mariahlee, the impact is right. And on a petty note, it’s a gorgeous pic of Meghan. She has that serene expression on her face, despite the sh*t she had probably seen by then.
I don’t think Camilla really has any relevance to the story. maybe Brown is going to try to flatter her or something?
Yes, the photos chosen and how they are arranged are interesting:
– Camilla first
– Camilla and Kate flanking the Queen, and both looking more towards her than away, while the Queen is facing more forward
– Meghan last
– Meghan looking away from all of them
It’s framed as C, QE and K are together, unified; Meghan is the outsider and outside.
That gives a clue as to what this book will hold.
And IMO in reality, I don’t think Charles and William are all that close. And there is no love lost between Kate and Camilla. They play happy families. If Brown is aware of any strife, she won’t tell. She seems to be establishment.
See, I thought the contrast with the Meghan pic is how beautiful she looks there: the one of Kate is from a day where I’ve always thought her face/skin was really showing her age. (And I don’t mean that in a cruel way— I’m the same age and my skin is definitely changing as well). Of all the pics of Kate to choose from, that one seems so unflattering, especially given how beautiful and serene Meghan’s is.
The Kate pic is HEAVILY photoshopped on that cover.
@ Fineskylark I did notice that too! Meghan’s was by far the most flattering portrait. She look serene where they other women look mean and old fashioned.
@NorthofBoston, I’m not 100% sure, but I’m almost positive that the cover is designed by the publisher, that the author has no say in it.
I think any publishing house would include Meghan, just since there’s so much interest in her. From a marketing POV, it would be a very odd choice to not include her, imo. Even though Meghan has only been on the scene for the past five years or so, she’s certainly played a pivotal role.
I can’t wait for this book, and if it does end up being completely negative re: the Sussexes, it will really be a disappointment (and I’ll return it!).
I wish we could write a book. At least the people here can see what was done to the Sussexes and is still being done to them. We could call it like it is. Shame on people jumping on the bash Meghan and Harry bandwagon just for cash. This is their life, this is not a game.
I would TOTALLY buy a book with all of CB’s royal posts and their accompanying comments! It would actually be useful to have them all in one place and in chronological order, lol. I hope Katie sees this 😂
I think there’s a good chance someone on Kate’s team reads the comments here, mostly to see what types of criticism she is getting. I think Kaiser will probably cover Tom Sykes most recent article about Kate, which has a Robert Lacey xtra chapters feeling al la the middletons, meaning he seems to be repeating a lot of words that a source from camp Middleton has fed him. A small chunk is all about how Kate has friends and what she does with them. Just last week and at other times, it has been discussed in the comments that Kate does not seem to have friends. Coincidence?
Honestly, sometimes I get a little too into the details so it’s possibly just a random thing that I’m blowing up. But why big up all of Kate’s friends now? It could be just a reaction to the 40×40 support Meghan received and thus making sure people know about Kate’s friends too. But I really think they prob read the comments from time to time and people were just going off on Kate’s seeming lack of friends a few days ago.
Imagine some of the RR also scroll through the comments when it’s slow and they need a topic. A while back, commenters were complaining about max foster and how they were writing cnn due to what he said about Meghan. I believe the clip was removed. About a day later, Dan Whooton wrote about max foster being a victim of cancel culture. A lot of times, our comments coincide with topics on Twitter or other SM so it could be just they are data mining from anywhere. But I just remember it was literally a day after I read about max foster in our comments that I saw the Dan Whooton headline. So I wouldn’t put it past them to read these comments at times. Not for sure they do but I always notice when a topic discussed in the comments soon pops up somewhere else. Keep your enemy close and all that.
@Jais it would be in their own best interest to read CB imo. Most comment sections online are unreadable cesspools, but the commenters here are in a totally different league; they’re so smart and insightful. I’ve learned a ton from commenters here.
It’s easy to both sides Diana to say she did good things and touched a lot of people *pleases fans* and she was crazy person who cheated too *pleases the royals*. That isn’t hard.
You’re not going to convince me that a white British woman who has all these connections is going to suddenly tell the truth about her aristocratic and royal adjacent pals and tell the truth about the treatment of Meghan?
She’s not going to throw those connections away to defend Meghan Markle.
I remember Gayle King interviewed her after Harry’s mental health special and she was parroting the party line about Harry being “fragile” and the palace being “so worried about his mental health”. So yeah, she’s a b!tch too, so I’m not expecting much fairness from this book regarding the Sussexes.
Right. I’ve read where the book is how the monarchy has preserved itself behind “explosive headlines”. I don’t believe it’s going to be a Windsor hit piece. Unfavorable to H & M, yes.
Even in the Tatler article I linked to above, Brown quipped at the end that Diana’s response to the Oprah interview would have been sending a text to Elton John saying, “Been there, done that”. I wouldn’t pre order this book. Hope a lot of us are wrong.
THe Diana Chronicles had some inaccuracies. She seemed to go to tab sources and ignored reference to Diana’s mother’s authorized biography among other sources. I don’t think she will be nice to Harry and Meghan.
The podcast “You’re wrong about” had a very good segment on Diana. They used a lot of material from Browns book but they also pointed out some of her bias and sexism regarding Diana. Considering how she’s written and the world she is in, this book will totally go after the Sussexes. All these books coming out, it’s basically to write about Harry and Meghan, profit off them, and regurgitate a lot of the BS. The rest of the royals will be minor mentions in comparison. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised, but doubt I will be.
L4Frimaire ITA about You’re Wrong About—that’s such a great podcast.
But I totally disagree that the other royals will only be minor mentions in this book…Meghan doesn’t appear until close to the end of the 25 year span Tina is covering, so that wouldn’t even make any sense.
I think a lot will be about the Queen, Charles, and William. IMO Tina knows that while the Sussexes have been talked about constantly in recent years, there is also a large market for longtime royal watchers who feel like they’ve been oversaturated with H&M coverage and who want to read more about the others.
Obviously this is all just speculation, but my fingers are crossed that at the very least, it will be *fair* to Harry and Meghan.
Diana had ONE lunch with her and after Diana died Brown claimed to be her “friend” she really wasn’t flattering to Diana in that book.
Diana was actually friends with Tina Brown for years, they did not have just “one lunch”. They were both involved with a number of charitable organizations over the years as well.
I would say she was an “acquaintance of Diana” not in the same circle of Close friends Diana had like Rosa Monckton and Caroline Bartholomew. Diana probably would have been put off by some of what Brown wrote about her in the Chronicles. I think Brown overstated how “close” Diana was to her, and Diana was not around to refute it.
How come Sophie did not make the cover?
LMAO 😂
I’d be surprised if this is the final cover. Might just be clickbait for the Kickstarter — I mean the “pre-order” — campaign. (To pay for Tina Brown’s advance lol.) Gorgeous picture of Meghan, very unflattering Camilla and Kate photos, and TQ looks grim — as she rather should, considering the various disgusting messes her heirs keep making. Unless the book is only about the women, though, this cover makes little sense.
@Lowrider lmao! It feels like they finally got a clue and realized Sophie just is not going to happen, ever (although I really dislike the increase in coverage of poor Louise).
As others have said this might not even be the final cover. But if it is, I don’t think it’s bad?
@Lowrider, I know! Put Sophie on the cover. It’s what Phillip would have wanted.
I’ll wait to see what the book says. I remember that her Vanity Fair articles in the early years of the Wales marriage were the first to point out the cracks and to hold Charles responsible for his abhorrent treatment of his wife. And that her obvious issues meant that he was a fool to have married her in the first place.
As to Harry and Meghan. I absolutely think they did the right thing in leaving and that racism was the largest factor in why. But the treatment of Diana shows that anyone who married in and wasn’t the blandest, most unobjectionable creature would be attacked as a grave danger to the Monarchy. That Meghan walked into this at the same time as the press fueled racist cataclysm of Brexit and Trumpism made the inferno apocalyptic. I would really like to see an analysis that looked at the underlying dynamics as well as the racism.
Tina Brown did really well in breaking down the tragedy of the last generation, let’s see how she does with this one.
Tina Brown was not kind to Diana. The Vanity Fair article “The Mouse that Roared” by Brown was a turning point, it was critical of Diana and did not make her look good. It was not flattering, I think she will toe the line with the royals in the M and H book.
I thought the article was pretty even-handed. She’d only been married to Charles for 4 years and was still finding her way. It seemed to me more critical of Charles and his deliberate isolating of himself, and mentioned him not visiting newborn Harry until 6 weeks after he was born. She actually defends Diana against some of the more hateful press comments, and Charles’s private secretary Edward Adeane, who left at that time, didn’t do it because he couldn’t tolerate Diana, he left because he couldn’t deal with the coterie of mystics, spiritualists, and self-sufficiency freaks that Charles had gathered around him.
@Jaded: holy sh!t! Charles didn’t see Harry for six weeks after he was born?! Seriously? That is…something else. Idk how, but somehow I never knew that. (Or I knew a long time ago and forgot, but that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing someone would forget.)
I do remember the first thing he (allegedly) said upon Harry’s birth was a comment about his disappointment at the color of Harry’s hair, which was dickish enough. But to not meet his son for six weeks? WTF??
@Lorelei – he did say something dickish about Harry when he was born — something like “oh God it’s a boy, and he’s even got red hair!” He was disappointed that it wasn’t a girl, as if it was Diana’s fault, so I gather Tina Brown is no great fan of his. I hope she takes a much dimmer view of his later shenanigans in the book.
If this is meant to be a MM bashing book they chosen interested quad of photos – Meghan looks gorgeous and fresh faced against the white ladies of Windsor.
Seriously, they all look like they sucked on a lemon…
I’m going to be practicing in the mirror to try to get Meghan’s expression down. So serene, happy, at ease with herself. I want to at least appear that way! Kate always seems to be pursing her lips, clamping them together to keep them shut. The Queen is looking down on her subjects from her ‘lofty’ heights. Camilla, well, she’s Camilla.
I will wait for Prince Harry memoir, he was born into the royal family, and would’ve much more of a solid insight of how the Firm truly operates. Tina Brown is an outsider and has to rely on sources within the royal family, that all are motivated to portray themselves in a good light, while spreading misinformation about Harry and Meghan.
Another way you can tell Tina Brown, will be dishonest broker of this upcoming tell all book, has she said anything negative or insightful of William and Kate…but only repeatedly negative comments about Harry and Meghan. Basically, the same tabloids talking points, the Cambridge’s are perfect without no flaws. Then I will be skipping her book.
I don’t follow a lot about Will and Kate, except for here – but I remember Tina Brown’s commentary on Kate at the time of W&K’s wedding. She called Kate the “un-Diana” and said her only duty was to breed. Brown also said that the British public didn’t like Charles and didn’t want Camilla as queen, but that he’d never give up the throne to William. And that Will and Kate might be the last royal couple because the monarchy was dying. Not much different from what we say here every day, only 10 years later.
Agree Eurydice. Tina Brown has too much at stake to make this all about praising W&K and bashing M&H. She’s miles above the gutter tabloids in her coverage of the royals and would never sink to their level of reportage.
Yes to all of this. Plus Tina Brown is friends with Gayle King. Tina praised the Oprah interview to the heavens and said that the interview showed “who is the real Queen—-Oprah.” That does not sound like a racist royalist.
Hmm, I mentioned upthread about a quote in Tatler saying the book would explore “the glittering, unquestionable rise of Duchess Cambridge.” At first, I was kinda repelled because it sounds like the typical tabloid infatuation with Kate never putting a foot wrong. But maybe its just a tease and will be a critical account of what exactly went on behind this unquestionable rise? If it ends up being unadorned flattery, I really can’t. But a lot of y’all are making cases that she won’t do that so I hope that’s the case.
@Lela I honestly don’t know what she’s said; I read her book but never followed her otherwise.
However, it seems possible that the reason there are more comments about H&M over the past few years is because she was always asked more about the Sussexes than she was about William and Kate? After the wedding, there really wasn’t all that much to say about them, and the interest in Harry and Meghan has been enormous. I remember even Serena Williams being asked about Meghan after a match (which was ridiculous).
If she’s going on talk shows or whatever, I just think it’s more likely she’d be asked her opinion of Harry and Meghan because no one cares about the Cambridges, especially if these appearances/interviews were in the US.
All these so called RF experts are going to look very silly when the real truth comes out. I expect once the Queen is dead and courtiers don’t get promotions and family members don’t get titles that a lot of tea will get spilled. Also coverage of W and K might be cray cray but the photos don’t lie when they show her desperation for his attention and his total indifference, borderline comtempt leaking through every pore. Both Diana and W are cancerians who didn’t and can’t hide marital unhappiness.
I have no clue for or against Tina Brown, but the title of this book calls to mind The Panama Papers (which revealed a lot of shady financial dealings by wealthy people across the world, of which the BRF and Liz especially was one of the biggest scandals). There is a part of me that wonders if she’ll focus more on the financial dealings that seem to keep getting swept under the rug due to that.
Wait—apparently the queen and the BRF dealings weren’t in the Panama papers, but in a separate leak called the Paradise Papers.
@Dion that caught my attention, too. I don’t think this book will be glowingly positive about *any* of them. Not if it’s even remotely based in truth.
Which borrows from The Pentagon Papers, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg & published in the NY Times. Blew open the doors on what we were doing in Vietnam.
My observation of the cover pics noticed three of them with jewelry and Madame
Duchess without. Interesting!
Everyone! I’m so disturbed by the number of comments starting with “I don’t know who Tina Brown is, but …”
Tina Brown was the editor of Vanity Fair in the 80s, before Graydon Carter turned it into a pile of elitist crap. She pretty much invented the mix of highbrow/lowbrow gossip that brings us all here today on a site called Celebitchy.
She went on to be the editor of the New Yorker, and I believe (not sure here, correct me if I’m wrong) she was pushed out because her dishy style didn’t suit the taste of her (male) board of directors. She was unsuccessful in her campaign to update the typeface and get rid of the archaic umlaut, but she managed to remake what had become an obscure local literary journal into great reading. That paved the way for respected journalists like Ronan Farrow to find a platform there.
Pushed out of the New Yorker, she started Talk Magazine which was intended to be the flagship title of a multimedia empire that included a publishing imprint and internet presence. This was in the mid-90s when the idea was still revolutionary. I loved Talk. (Talk was the clear descendant of Tatler, which Tina had edited in her career adolescence.) Talk’s premier issue had Hillary Clinton on the cover, prescient in retrospect. It tried to reframe political news in a way that was digestible to the masses, with a good dose of gossip thrown in. JFK Jr copied it with his “George” magazine not many months later, shortly before he died.
Time marched on, quickly. JFK JR died and his influence drowned with him. The Talk empire failed because Tina pulled out of her partnership with Miramax. (Harvey Weinstein.) Who knows what she knew about him, but she wasn’t willing to work with him anymore, and her career tanked because of it. The internet part of the deal spun off into the independent Daily Beast which is a shadow of its former self.
Tina Brown is married to Harold Evans, the former editor of the Times (of London.) Harold Evans was FIRED by Rupert Murdoch for being too liberal, after which they both decided to emigrate to the US and make their careers here. She’s written a great article about her first meeting with Boris Johnson, when she was editor of Tatler and he was a sloppy and slobbering undergrad at Oxford.
So, look. Yes she’s white and conventionally attractive, and older, and yes she’s aristo-adjacent and once had lunch with Diana and maybe she spun that a bit much after Diana’s death a few weeks later. But, in my view as someone who grew up influenced by her take on pseudo-highbrow media, Tina Brown is in no way a puppet of the monarchy, nor of the conservative wing of British politics.
+1
Tina is a celebrity in her own right and I am sure she knows that this tone and level of this book will help determine her final journalistic legacy.
Oops, never mind.
Yes, but she’s a white woman and we have seen very often white women have a problem empathizing or identifying with black women. By just marrying into the family, Meghan was considered this disruptive, modernizing influence. I could see Tina being condescending but ultimately much kinder to Kate and writing about Meghan in a dehumanizing way just like Robert Lacey.
But Meghan *was* a disruptive, modernizing influence – how could she not have been, as a beautiful and charismatic WOC with a successful career coming into that pale and constipated environment? I’m still astonished that the Queen allowed the marriage. The only way I can explain it to myself is that they were already losing their grip on Harry , that they’ve been afraid of this for years before Meghan. He was prepared to leave the RF if they didn’t let him marry Meghan and the RF panicked. They figured, “ok, ok, ok, we can handle this, we’ve driven out wives before, she’ll leave him in a couple of years and then we can put poor, fragile Harry back together again and send him out to do William’s work.” A huge miscalculation.
I think this is what we’ll see from Harry’s memoir.
You should just say racist. Meghan married into a racist family and they abused her until the Sussexes could get away from them.
Does Tina care more about staying on code about white entitlement or is she going to address that the Monarchy is racist and abusive?
AFAIK, this isn’t a book about Meghan and Harry, or about racism in the BRF per se. I agree that a true examination of racist influences on modern royalty is long overdue, and that a privileged white woman is probably not the best candidate to research or write it. But this isn’t that, from what I gather it’s just a dishy social history of the Windsors from 1997-2021, written by someone in a unique position to know some stuff. I don’t expect more from it than that.
@Kalana – Sure, we can call it “racist” because it is. But that doesn’t answer the questions of how and why the Queen allowed the marriage. And it brings up other questions – why would Harry bring Meghan into an obviously racist family, and why would Meghan want to marry into an obviously racist family? Clearly, H&M love each other very much, but that doesn’t change the racist part. Something had to have happened behind the scenes to make the RF pretend to accept Meghan.
Thanks for bring out all this information. Brown was enormously influential and her career was not tied to the RF in any way, other than as one of many subjects for reporting.
@Lionel, thank you!! 👏👏
ETA: @Eurydice thank you for your excellent comment as well 👏👏
This site has the smartest commenters!
I REALLY don’t know Tina Brown and I don’t think is such an egregious thing to admit. Except for here, I don’t follow the RF. I did not read Vanity Fair in the 80´s- I was a child!
So, yes, thank you for telling me who she is, but I would have appreciated not being shamed by my ignorance on Tina Brown!
Nobody’s shaming you, MW, and my post wasn’t directed towards any particular commenter. Weird that you took it personally, but whatever. I’d appreciate my lived experience and willingness to share information not being mischaracterized as “shaming.” It’s almost as if you’re defending willful ignorance.
I haven’t scrolled up to find whatever you said and I’m not going to, so what follows is also not directed at you specifically. But since it appears that I need to spell it out, please note that anyone who is brazen enough to comment that “I don’t know who (name an iconic, trailblazing woman in any field) is but I’m still going to give you my opinion on her thoughts and likely future output” risks looking painfully shallow. If that misguided commenter were me, I would appreciate being corrected and edified. Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is freedom, my friend.
Great post Lionel.
Not sure about her writing a fair book. Her writing on Diana had passages that were either missogynists or straight up oblivious to mental health struggles. Not sure any of those royal reporters has actually done the work to grow as people, so I would not be surprised if she shows the same disregard now
I am going to read it. It’s going on my reading list.
Tina Brown is a good journalist who also happens to be a privileged white woman used to moving in upper class British circles and among American social, political, artistic and intellectual elites. All of that affects the perspective from which she views the world. Whether or not she can look outside of it in this new book remains to be seen. She can certainly explain things from the Royals’ perspective, but can she really look at the racism and xenophobia that drove Brexit and the hate campaign against Meghan with a real critical eye? Can she put herself in Meghan’s shoes, or even Harry’s? I think it would be difficult, but not impossible. I think a great deal depends on who she talks to. I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I don’t think there is necessarily that much appetite for yet another book about the royal family except among the most ardent royalists without using Harry and Meghan and even Andrew to drum up interest. I haven’t read any of Tina’s books, but have read her articles and watched her interviews. I never took much interest in Diana beyond seeing her as a basket case at the time, and have never read any of the biographies. I did watch the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, and it completely changed my view of her. I realized how completely alone she was in her battle against the royal family and her various mental/psychological challenges. She had an innate sense of survival, I think. I believe Harry alluded to the fact that his mother was so alone, and that he and Meghan had each other. I think Tina is probably able to explain Diana because she moved in the same world. I don’t aniticpate that she will have the same lens on Meghan.
@Tamsin YES. That is why people are referencing her age and race. It’s not because they think it makes her a bad journalist. It’s not because it takes away from her successes in the journalism world.
It’s because it’s going to impact her perspective here and impact how she views things and only time will tell if she rises above that or if she does not in this book. It’s not that she “can’t” rise above it. It’s that we don’t know now, at this point, if she will.
My guess is this will be similar to Battle of Brothers, or And What Do YOU Do by Norman Baker, where no one comes off really looking that great.
I guess my question would be (not to you, specifically, but to all who are saying that Tina Brown can’t possibly understand the subject) who would be appropriate to write a story of a centuries-old, white, British monarchy? Should it be a youngish American WOC with no experience in the monarchy? That person might empathize with Meghan’s situation, but will not know what it was like to marry a prince or anything else regarding the monarchy, its workings and its place in British history and society. So how accurate would a book like that be?
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need Tina Brown to blow the doors off Meghan’s story – Meghan herself did that in the Oprah interview. What I want to know is how the rest of the cast of characters got to this point.
@Eurydice, good points, and I especially agree with the last part of your comment. We all know what happened to the Sussexes (I’m sure there are some horrific details that haven’t made it out yet, but we know the gist).
It’s the others that need some scrutiny; Harry and Meghan have had more than their fair share.
Tina Brown does have an excellent journalistic pedigree. Unfortunately, I see little evidence of her being THE journalist that blows open the Terrible Tale of Billy the Bully and his Sidekick The Middle-Class Mean Girl.
So, no. This book might hint that Burger King had a temper and had concerns about Archie, and that Kate and her mom and CamelToe schemed together to trash Meghan in the tabs, but we’ll have to wait for Harry or someone like Ronan Farrow to spill the real honest tea.
Despite Tina’s “excellent journalistic pedigree” I am very sceptical of her intentions and if she will really tell the truth about the Windsors.
Just look at the book’s cover! Why does it only have the portraits of the senior female royals? Where are the Windsor males? It gives the impression that she will focus on the Windsor women and their intrigues, just like her Diana book and portray them as culprits.
I hate it when women tear other women down in publications because it sells better and everybody loves catfights. Please, not another Lacey “historian” wannabe who writes to please the hand that feeds him/her! So tired of this so-called carnival of money scraping “biographers”.
At least Harry’s memoir will be authentic. Worth waiting for!
I laugh when I read Lacey described as an historian. Having read parts of BOTB his writing style comes across as camp tabloid gossip.
I honestly think that we should stop holding our breath that some powerful person in the media will deliver a resounding blow to the anti-Meghan and anti-Sussex narrative. If the Oprah interview wasn’t enough to crush the hatefulness, nothing will. Also, release your breath over Will and/or Kate being exposed: there are a lot of people invested in covering up for them, and have been invested since these two started dating in college. The “waity Katey” stuff was just a digs at her for not hetting the ring when they thought she would–the Middleton gossip complex & PR campaign was never exposed. The quicker folks accept that racism, white supremacy, and misogynoir is that entrenched in the world, the quicker you’ll stop searching for any hint of “justice.”
I agree with posters above-this is an attempt to spin the royal family favorably before Prince Harry’s memoir comes out-why won’t she wait to after the Jubilee-She’ trying to blunt any criticisms of the royal family before Harry’s book hits the shelf-in April 2022-I smell this a mile away.
I see signs of what you’re saying. At what point does TB end Harry & Meghan’s story. If she brings up the Oprah interview will she bring up the “bullying” allegations that were made against Meghan before the interview came out or leave it out entirely. Since the supposed results of the “bullying” investigation were postponed until June 2022 and the book comes out in April 2022, TB should not include that in the book-if she plans to.
Here is a link to a CBS piece TB did after the O interview. Starting around the 1:38 mark, she appears to question how Meghan could misunderstand her role when as an actress she should have prepared for that role when ‘all the information is out there’. TB says she(Meghan) made the charge of racism. Meghan may have brought it up first but Harry was a relevant part of it too. TB should have said they not she. To me, Brown just sounds like a less vitriolic version of Piers Morgan when talking about Meghan. The Tatler article linked above is from July 2021. Even though Meghan made the Little Mermaid analogy, it seems dismissive when Brown wrote ‘Little Mermaid narrative’.imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgupDTJPA_0
Prince Harry and Meghan faced 2 powerful institutions viz the Monarchy and the Tabloid media. No writers have access to what actually goes on within the palace wall.
A media figure like Tina Brown will therefore fill her book with what is already said by other writers , laced with her own speculations and gossips and not to mention personal bias might color her writings.
If she wants to secure her ties with British monarchy, she will repeatedly echo the lies from them.
However, when and if she dig on the truth, scandals and not afraid to go against the monarch. She will surely get a best seller outside of the British island,
because lets face it, readers outside of England love to read the truth and scandals about the monarch.
If she want to sell to the royalist by catering to their needs, how much will she sells her books.
The bench is a best seller in most countries.
Priorities madam, priorities.
Good luck.