TINA BROWN

Miss Brown became famous for, effectively, inventing the celebrity culture when she took over Vanity Fair in 1984. She now seems slightly to regret this, saying “the monster was let out of the box”. And she certainly doesn’t feel it’s relevant to America today. “Oh, God, I was bored with celebrity culture at Vanity Fair, which was why I left to go to The New Yorker,” she says.“I think a magazine editor tries to reflect and define the times they are living in. The rise of celebrity culture was what was happening in America just then. Our magazine chronicled and defined it. I don’t think it’s interesting now.”This brings her on to her great interest of the moment, politics. “The biggest celebrity in America today is the President of the United States; and just by that being true it defines a new interest in politics. That’s where the zeitgeist is in America today. It’s in Washington, not in Hollywood.”

-The Telegraph
June 2 2009