Tina Brown says “all of [Meghan Markle’s] ideas are total crap,” and thinks Prince Harry is a “naive” “lamb to the slaughter.
The former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor praised the couple for promoting her new substack, “Fresh Hell” — and also admitted that going into business with Harvey Weinstein in the late ’90s itself was ” the dumbest career move of anyone’s life.”
Ankler’s Janice Min asked the British wunderkind editor who took over New York in the ’80s about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on the latest episode of the Ankler podcast.
Brown said of Harry’s defection from the royal family: “In England they will constantly make a career out of dumping Harry. But actually the thing about Harry is that he’s very good at being Prince Harry. And that’s the tragedy of all this is, that he’s the most talented member of the royal family, without a doubt, in terms of being a prince, which is all he knows how to do… he’s really kind of flawless at it.”
As for Markle, she added: “I think he’s quite excited about Meghan. The problem with Meghan is that she has the worst judgment of anyone in the whole world. She’s flawless at getting it all wrong. It’s she really.”
Brown said of the “Suits” star turned American Riviera Orchard entrepreneur, “She’s a perfectionist at getting it all wrong. Her problem is she doesn’t listen. She has all these people, asks their opinion and doesn’t follow it. She does what she wants. And all her ideas are total crap, unfortunately.”
She reckons on Harry’s world view, “he’s so naive and really unschooled in the ways of the world. Being Prince Harry means I doubt he’s ever booked a table in a restaurant. The army was great for him and he was extremely good and competent in there. It really helped make him a real person.”
But with Markle, “he’s crippled for slaughter in this situation,” Brown said. “He was terribly impressed with Meghan. He thought she knew everything, she convinced him that she was the savvy Hollywood wheeler-dealer who could come in and make them stars and all that. And he followed her just blind as a child, really.”
The couple married in 2018 at Windsor Castle, but left the royal family in 2020 and went to California.
Brown says of Markle’s move — and future, “unfortunately she made every mistake in the book and she’s kind of run out of steam. I don’t know where Meghan is going. Harry could still, as I say, make a comeback. He will always be Prince Harry. He will always be the grandson of the Queen and the son of Diana.”
Meanwhile, Brown also candidly recalled her time working with former power producer Weinstein when she created the ill-fated Talk Magazine with his Miramax film.
“Well, the Harvey that I went to work for just had [produced] ‘The English Patient,’ so he was the god of quality at the time,” she told Min about the launch of their magazine in 1999. “And in probably the dumbest career move of anyone’s life, I left New Yorker magazine to go into in business with Harvey.”
Talk was also overseen by famed Condè Nast executive Ron Galotti, who was said to be the inspiration for Mr. Big on “Sex and the City,” and Hearst was also involved in the short-lived venture.
Weinstein is infamously behind bars awaiting a new sex crimes trial in New York after a 23-year conviction was overturned in April. He also faces another charge, plus a trial in Los Angeles.
Brown says that these days, “It’s so funny when I go and speak at women’s empowerment conferences, I see they’re all crushed when I say that Harvey Weinstein didn’t sexually harass me. I mean, they all want him to have sexually harassed me.”
She added on Min’s podcast that “He didn’t sexually harass me, but he was very difficult in other ways. I completely understand how people could end up being very scared of him. It’s pretty incredible to think that he’s sitting there in that prison, and he will probably die there.”
Brown also covered Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Tucker Carlson, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and more in the extensive chat.
Brown is also behind the Truth Tellers summit for investigative journalism in London, we have reported.
She told Page Six of the initiative: “We’re celebrating amazing journalists who are doing brave and courageous work… What’s exciting about the summit is that we’re really trying to do a good job despite these difficult times… Nothing beats a journalist who is willing to knock on doors.
We’ve reached out to reps for Markle and Prince Harry for comment.