Tina Brown: Royal Women Face “Constant Misogyny”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Your book has all the women on it. The — certain accident that you’re focusing on the women. The Queen is obviously a woman. And then you’ve got Charles, Camilla. You’ve got — who else do you have there?

TINA BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, THE DAILY BEAST: Meghan and Kate.

AMANPOUR: You have Kate and Meghan. All females.

BROWN: Uh-huh.

AMANPOUR: You — it’s been said, and I could say it you, your very hard on the Sussexes, Harry and Meghan. But you put into context Kate and William. I just want to know what you think about the undue pressures that women in the royalty, whether it’s British royalty, even the Japanese royalty, I mean the women there have had such a difficult time, the females there.

BROWN: Well, I think it’s — there’s huge pressure. And they have to go through the most enormously, kind of, misogynistic press. All of them. The case of Meghan, she did have a racist press. There’s no question about it. And the constant misogyny for all of them. And they’re just supposed to sort of smile and bear it. I have to say that women turned out to be very good at this role. We’ve had Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II. I’m sorry, but women are really good at this job. You know, Bill Clinton famously said that Hillary has the responsibility gene, and he should know it being the most irresponsible man in the world. But there is something about women just deciding to just bite this off and do it well. And you’ve seen this, you know, really with — you’ve seen it with Camilla since she’s been married to Charles. You know, the pariah Camilla, now the mistress for so long once, you know, she’s married to Charles and she really hasn’t been a foot wrong. She’s been, you know, discreet. She’s been dutiful. She’s done everything she’s supposed to do. Same thing with Kate. And actually, I mean, Meghan was a great success as the Duchess of Sussex when she was here. Terrific, I mean, no one can complain about how brilliantly she did her role. She just hated every second of it. But, you know, she was certainly talented at it.

AMANPOUR: You know, it’s funny you say that women have been so successful. The ones who mentioned, of course, have been. Prince Harry, to give him his due, actually went to war in Afghanistan.

BROWN: Yes.

AMANPOUR: He tried to do his duty.

BROWN: Yes, yes, yes.

AMANPOUR: He tried to serve, as the Queen always says, I’m here to serve. Then he was outed and they had to pull him out of Afghanistan.

BROWN: Yes, it’s a real tragedy, that, actually. Because, you know, William — Harry actually did show that he was a real leader of men.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

BROWN: He was adored by his men. He was very brave. And I do think that his Invictus initiative is probably the most successful royal initiative since the Duke of Edinburgh’s awards game. I mean, you know, it’s human. It’s real —

AMANPOUR: That is really important.

BROWN: Really important.

AMANPOUR: Wounded veterans.

BROWN: And he has authenticity talking about it as a veteran.