Who is Tom Bower? Biographer to write Meghan Markle story for six-figure sum, says source: 'She'll dread it'
Biographer Tom Bower has agreed to a six-figure sum to lay Meghan Markle's life bare and tell her story, sources have revealed.
Bower, who is renowned for his unsparing, unauthorized biographies of well-known figures including Boris Johnson, Prince Charles and Robert Maxwell, will embark on a full year-worth of meticulous research, talking with friends, foes and associates of Harry and Meghan so that he can tell the Duchess of Susex's story, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday. "This is the book Meghan will be dreading," a source told The Sun.
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Who is Tom Bower?
Tom Bower, 74, is a British writer known for his investigative journalism and for his biographies, often of business tycoons and newspaper proprietors. He was born Thomas Bauer in 1946, to Jewish refugees in London. His parents fled Prague after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 during the Second World War, and arrived in London later that same year. They married in London three years before Bower was born. From 1948, Tom's father Jiri Gerhard Bauer renounced the use of the surname Bauer for the family, and renamed himself George Gerald Bower.
After attending the William Ellis School in Hampstead, Bower studied law at the London School of Economics, before working as a barrister for the National Council of Civil Liberties. Bower has a Marxist past, claiming in a New Statesman report during a time which he calls the 'student occupation of the London School of Economics'. He was nicknamed "Tommy the Red". He is married to Veronica Wadley, Baroness Fleet, former editor of the London Evening Standard, with whom he has four children. They live in London.
'Interested in convicted people who say they are innocent'
Bower's works include biographies of Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Jeremy Corbyn, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Conrad Black and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Robert Maxwell fought a court battle to block the writer's first book about him, helping to raise its profile and boost its sales, while Richard Branson made no secret of his distaste for Bower's biography of him when it appeared in 2000. A book about publisher, businessman and former pornographer Richard Desmond remains unpublished. His book, 'Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football', won the 2003 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
In 1970, Bower joined the BBC as a researcher on the program '24 Hours' before becoming a reporter on Panorama from 1975 until 1987. “If they allow defeat to overwhelm them they’re lost, they are of absolutely no interest to me. I’m interested in people who overcome adversity, whose ego is so dominant that even when, like Maxwell and Black, they are actually convicted, they still say they are innocent," he says of the kind of work he likes to do in a New Statesman report.
'I give their marriage 3 years'
Bower has written about his distaste for Meghan Markle in a New Statesman piece published in February 2019. In it, he spoke about how Prince Charles was his last target. "Naturally he and Camilla hated my book but the critical exposé did trigger radical changes in his behavior that have made him more acceptable to Britons," he said. "Unfortunately, he remains powerless to order Meghan Markle, his celebrity daughter-in-law, to follow his new determination to resist controversy," he added.
Bower said that Markle's criticism of British academia as "pale, male and stale" is treading into "dangerous territory". Appointing college and university professors on the basis of race and gender and not academic excellence, he says "will destroy British academia". He added that if Markle doesn’t stop "pontificating and protesting", he gives her marriage with Prince Harry three years. "Inevitably, she’ll then go off to write her blockbuster book," he said, adding, "Take care, Meghan. I’ll get mine out first!"
'No stone will be left unturned'
"Tom doesn't pull his punches and is terrifyingly thorough in his research. No stone will be left unturned", a source told The Sun. "Tom has previously worked with some of his subjects and even spent time trailing them, but it has been made perfectly clear to him that this will not be an option with Meghan," they added.
“She wants no part of it. Given the events of recent weeks and months, this book will be dynamite — he reckons this is just the tip of the iceberg, and more will emerge over the next 12 months," they said. News of the so-far untitled book comes following the controversial publication of 'Finding Freedom', the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's “unofficially authorized” biography by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand. Following a bidding war, US publisher Simon & Schuster are said to have agreed to buy the rights to Bower's planned book, which is expected to interview members of Meghan's estranged family, including father Thomas and former palace staff.