It’s that quick scroll through all the entrails of the world, the formerVanity FairandNew Yorkereditor-in-chief tells me.
That’s my phone rollover.
In the 10 years since Browns editorship ofThe Daily Beast, Brown has turned her attention to writing books.
I can’t tell you how hard it is to now have to make plans.
We never had to make plans.
We were just in sync.
So I was lucky, she says of the loss.
Going to press up against the clock and the whole thing.
I think there’s no fun like it, actually.
So Im curious, as someone who writes about the royals, how do you actually report on them?
What is your process like of parsing through all that supposed fabrication?
I think that he’s a little too conspiratorial.
I mean, politicians are dependent on the Washington press corps.
Hollywood stars are dependent on the entertainment press.
What are they supposed to do in the palace?
Just be clueless about their press?
As for the planting of negative stories, I’m sure they do that.
Just as ABC talent does it about each other.
I mean, how many people were planting negative stories aboutT.J.
Holmes and Amy Robach?
So there is a bit of that.
If one member of the team is getting better press than another, the other one is jealous.
Which is true of anybody in politics, anybody in Hollywood.
Howmuchthey do to move the spotlight to one another is what [Harrys] arguing.
Before readingThe Palace Papers, I knew fairly little about Kate Middletons origin story.
There’s no doubt that Harry and Meghan jostled the Cambridges and were very unsettling to them.
I don’t know if there is room for both of them.
In a strange way, what William went through was sort of what his father went through with Diana.
He’s like, “I don’t want to be upstaged.”
I don’t think that it’s such a surprising thing.
So how do you actually report out and vet these stories?
I just interview the hell out of everybody.
But it was always worth it because that one sentence was the detail that you were actually looking for.
I interview all kinds of people who are not necessarily in the palace mix.
Whats your favorite kind of source?
Somebody who notices the right thing.
you might teach a writer how to do structure, narrative, or write a good lead.
you’re able to’t teach them how to remember the right thing.
I remember interviewing somebody once who was actually with the queen on the day Diana died.
I thought to myself, This is agony!
You saw it all!
You cant be this generic!
It makes you insane.
So it can be very unexpected.
Sometimes it’s a member of staff with a very beady eye.
A chauffeur, they hear everything.
Its sometimes those people who notice the most things.
You were pretty confidentSparewould never see the light of day.
Well, for a moment it nearly didn’t.
Were there any revelations inSparethat genuinely surprised you?
I wrote [inThe Palace Papers] that Harry and Williams relationship had very much deteriorated before Meghan.
I always said it wasn’t she that spoiled the relationship.
It was already spoiled.
But it was much worse than I perhaps thought, if one is to believe his version.
Personally, I was really struck by thatJoan Didion-esque magical thinkingthat clouded Harrys grief over Diana.
This belief that she was really going to come back.
It’s very moving.
It wasn’t just about who he was, he had a lot of respect in military circles.
I mean, blows them all away.
How do you think she wouldve felt about the book?
They are very similar, it’s that Spencer emotional impetuosity.
Not only did she adore William, she really wanted him to be king.
She spent a lot of time and focus on training him to be king.
Primogeniture is a cruel thing.
But it is the way that they run things and always have.
So I think she would’ve felt, William is going to be king.
You have to get over that.
I’d like to hear them answer whether they made any mistakes.
Tell us about what you got wrong.
I don’t mean saying, Well, I was too generous or I was too trusting.
Right now, they are really unpopular in the U.K.
But I still think that the English public would like to see Harry and William [reconcile].
After the death of the queen, when they appeared together there was this sense of, Thank God.
And I think maybe at some point it might.
So you do believe there’s a path of reconciliation?
I think it’s very, very difficult at the moment.
Harry has kept saying, “I’d like to be reconciled.”
Well, you’ve just fired all these bombs.
Now they’ve landed and there has been quite a lot of wreckage.
So it’s a bit hard to expect them to say, “Glad you shot your mouth off.
Now come back.”
But I think Charles would like them [together] at the coronation.
Did burying yourself inThe Palace Papershelp you cope?
It was my hiding place.
A book is a great refuge, and work is a refuge.
My husband always felt that and he was an absolute workaholic.
It was about the joy of his work.
[…] I really do believe in rigor and how restoring rigor is.
Because you’re thinking, Thank God it’s now me, the writer, and the story.
I can apply my rigor and then attack the manuscript genuinely as a craft.
You hope for either good reviews or you hope to sell more.
I would’ve taken either, but it was very nice that both things happened.
I didn’t expect that.
So now I’ve just got to figure out what I do next.
So I find other ways to do things.
Have you ever been exhausted by your own ambition?
I am just wildly responsive to the world.
So my drawback is I can get too easily galvanized.
I can suddenly go, “We should do blah, blah, blah.”
It’s a completely onerous task."
I’m very project related.
I like having a deadline, a goal.
I’m not good at what I call project cruising, doing four things at once.
If I’m writing a book, I am writing a book.
If I’m doing a live event or something, that’s what I’m focused on.
I like to have serial obsessions.
The Vanity Fair Diariescame out in 2017, but everyone seemed to be reading it this summer myself included.
How aware are you of the second life its taken on?
It has become something of a cult hit.
I think maybe people are a bit nostalgic for the era.
The whole excitement of the magazine world has vanished.
Also just the experience of having hub places where everybody was has completely vanished with the virtual working space.
So much of your career has taken place at the top of a masthead.
Does that feel satisfying in a different way?
It has been, I have to say.
Its pleasing to be able to transfer ones skillset.
Three times a day I see a story I would like to do.
And frequently they don’t happen.
Sometimes they do, but a lot of the times I wish I had a place to put it.
If youwereto be back at say,Vanity Fair, what would you be covering?
Who would you put on the cover?
Obviously, she was the person [Alec Baldwin] was talking to on the set ofRust.
I mean, he’s completely colonized by Hilaria Baldwin.
Field day’s traumatic enough if you have two.
Do you divide and conquer watching all the relay races with the nannies?
No, because today you have to be a perfect parent.
In fact, there isnt any other culture.
Celebrity culture has eaten the world.
Theres just no other kind.
Magazines used to have the power, compared to celebrities!
Now its totally reversed.
Isn’t it just the worst thing?
I mean, journalism used to be so good because there was access.
She was given the access that you wouldn’t believe.
She was riding around with Hillary while she was campaigning with Bill.
You remember the wholeGennifer Flowers explosion, [when Bill Clinton’s affair was first revealed]?
Gail is standing next to her on the payphone while she’s yelling at Bill!
The problem is it really has meant that we don’t know anybody anymore.
Of course thats what went wrong withGeorge Santos the fact that nobody reported on George Santos.
I keep reading pieces in theTimessaying, “What was the failure of opposition research on George Santos?”
Would you put George Santos on a cover?
He would be a big, big story.
It’s the big grift.
That was another thing that was fascinating to me aboutThe Diaries.
But those types of stories were the bread and butter of yourVanity Fairin the 80s.
It was never about the crime, as in theDatelineversion.
It is really about what does this allow me to learn about that society?
Or a high society?
Or the world of George Santos?
That’s whatDominick Dunnewas so good at.
My husband taught me that.
Theyre an endlessly giving story.
I have some final, rapid-fire questions for you.
Looking back on your career, do you have any regrets?
Going to work for Harvey Weinstein.
That was my big regret.
Was there a moment where you felt like you really made it?
First time I was paid a million dollars.
Is there something you wish you could tell your younger self?
I would say count to 25 before you say yes.
IfThe Vanity Fair Diarieswas to be made into a miniseries, who would you like to be played by?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
