Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and a longtime royal biographer, has written that King Charles is reportedly frustrated by what she described as Prince William’s “underwhelming” approach to royal duties, a claim that has renewed scrutiny of the Prince and Princess of Wales’s public schedule.
In a Substack post, Brown wrote that the King is “currently less irritated with the prodigal Harry than he is with his elder son and heir,” and contrasted Prince Harry’s recent buoyant photo opportunities with William and Kate’s appearances at what she called a handful of “groaningly square” charity events. Brown, who was a friend of the late Princess Diana, also called the Prince of Wales a “performative pinhead” when responding to his stated priorities for his public role.
Brown’s intervention includes a series of specific criticisms and comparisons. She highlighted a recent high-profile donation by Prince Harry—reported as £1.1 million to the BBC’s Children in Need—and asked publicly what Prince William is doing with the estimated £23 million a year he receives from the Duchy of Cornwall. Brown also questioned the scale of William’s Earthshot Prize, noting its £1 million value is underwritten by sponsors, and contrasted William’s approach with King Charles’s decades-long philanthropic record, beginning with the establishment of The Prince’s Trust.
The debate over the couple’s workload is partly driven by official tallies in the Court Circular. According to figures cited by Brown, William logged 107 official engagements in the year to Sept. 5, compared with 175 for the King and 189 for Princess Anne. Prince Edward and the Duchess of Edinburgh carried out 129 and 117 engagements respectively. The figures also show Kate, Princess of Wales, recorded 37 engagements in that period and that William and Kate took the whole of August and part of July off, a pattern that suggested extended family time, including trips overseas.
Supporters of William and Kate argue those numbers do not capture the full scope of their work. They say the couple devote time to charities and projects that are not always recorded as official engagements and that William has deliberately chosen a different model of public service. During a visit to South Africa, the Prince described his approach as attempting “to do it differently” and said he was working with “maybe a smaller R in the royal,” remarks Brown cited as evidence that William is concentrating on quality and behind-the-scenes impact rather than high-volume public appearances.
Allies of the couple emphasize initiatives such as the Earthshot Prize and long-term homelessness work as examples of substantive activity that requires convening and strategy rather than frequent public-facing engagements. One friend quoted by Brown said William’s aim was to focus on “fewer but more consequential issues” and that the Prince’s involvement in strategy and decision-making for his projects was significant even when it did not generate regular headlines.
Brown’s piece drew attention to the family’s recent diary. She noted that the couple had taken five confirmed family vacations in seven months and that William’s early September schedule included a children’s rugby match and a visit to the Natural History Museum’s gardens, while Harry had been more visible with visits and photo opportunities in the UK and abroad, including Ukraine.
The story also acknowledged mitigating factors that affect the public diary. Brown’s piece did not foreground the health issues affecting senior royals: the King is undergoing cancer treatment, and the Princess of Wales has spent much of the past 18 months sidelined by her own treatment. Those circumstances have affected who can carry out engagements and how the family’s public workload has been distributed.
Debate about the couple’s work patterns is longstanding. Critics have variously accused William of having a “workshy” image, a label that surfaced repeatedly in media coverage during the mid-2010s. Public scrutiny intensified in 2015 and 2016 amid comparisons with older members of the family and with Prince Harry, who at the time was single and more visibly active in media-facing roles. The Prince’s air ambulance work and the limited hours that role entailed were cited in earlier criticisms, and Harry later wrote in his memoir Spare that media coverage of William during those years felt unfair.
The couple’s public profile shifted in the years following those debates. William and Kate took on fuller-time royal duties after William stepped back from his air ambulance role, and the family relocated their primary residence to Kensington Palace while balancing parenting and engagements. Criticism has resurfaced periodically: Brown’s piece recalled instances including reports that William missed a family Commonwealth Day appearance in 2017, a 2023 episode in which a biographer’s phrasing about William’s work habits was amended, and a recent criticism that William did not travel to Australia last summer to support an England team while serving as FA patron.
Brown’s column reopened questions over how royal work should be measured: by the number of public engagements, by high-profile philanthropic gestures, or by less visible strategic involvement and donations. She argued that William’s approach can appear modest when juxtaposed with long, public-standing philanthropic efforts such as those begun by Charles. Supporters of William counter that visibility is not the only indicator of impact and that the couple are building a pace of work meant to endure across decades and accommodate family life.
The intervention has prompted responses across royal-watching circles. Commentators and royal aides have pushed both for nuance—pointing to private charitable work and the practicalities of family life—and for recognition that headline-grabbing visits can disproportionately shape public perception. Brown’s piece, by invoking the King’s alleged frustration, reopens questions about expectations of the heir to the throne as the monarchy navigates health challenges, generational transition and competing demands for spectacle and substance.
The royal household has not issued a comment specifically addressing Brown’s claims. The wider debate over public duties, philanthropic impact and the balance between private family life and public service appears likely to continue as William and Kate resume and expand their public diary in the coming months, and as Harry’s intermittent high-profile appearances remain a contrasting measure of royal visibility.