Tina Brown, formerly the founding editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and a close friend of Princess Diana, has said that she believes Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir will never be published, and joked that Meghan Markle could one day marry Elon Musk.
The former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker was speaking at a British literary event to mark the publication of her new royal book, The Palace Papers, the Telegraph reported.
Speaking about Harry’s memoir, which was due to be published this year as part of a multi-million dollar book deal but appears to have been delayed, Brown said: “They are now in this bind, where they’ve taken all this money and Harry has made this book deal where he’s supposed to spill everything about his horrible life as a royal, but now he’s actually tortured about it because he understands there is no way back if he does it... If the book continues, I don’t think there is any way for Harry to return. So my view has always been that the book won’t see the light of day.
“The window is beginning to close but I always thought at some point a deal would be made and Charles would have to pay back the advance to stop Harry writing this book.”
The claim contradicts reports yesterday that Harry was merely re-writing the book so that it made sense in the light of Queen Elizabeth’s death, including changing present-tense verbs to the past tense.
Brown, who was one of the last people to see Diana alive when she joined her and Anna Wintour for lunch at The Four Seasons in Manhattan (naturally), told the Henley Literary Festival she thought Diana would have urged Harry to make peace with her family.
According to the report in the Telegraph, Brown said: “Diana was very pragmatic. I think she would have said to Harry, ‘This isn’t going anywhere. You need to make a deal and find a way to come back.’”
Asked about reports that Meghan and Harry are looking for a new house, Brown said: “Yes, and at some point it might be more than a new house she’s looking for… Elon Musk is still single, that’s all I have to say.”
She added that by the standards of their Montecito neighbors they were poor, saying: “It’s not very pleasant to be a D-list celebrity who, for them, doesn’t have enough money. It’s a wholly different game to be with those super-rich people.
“In Montecito, where they live, their $14 million mansion is a humble cottage compared to what these other people have.”