You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today has written a memoir of her life which has caused quite a stir for the light it casts on the

extraordinary even grotesque world of the super rich exquisitely connected elites of New York and

London for a decade after 1992 Barbara amiel herself a newspaper editor and columnist was a

glamorous hostess of the wealthy and the famous, thanks to

her marriage to Conrad Black, the Canadian entrepreneur who built a media empire, including

the Daily Telegraph in London, only to see it come crashing down when he was convicted of fraud

in the US courts. He was sentenced to more than six years in prison. Miss Amil saw her world of

lavish parties, extravagant spending and multiple homes disintegrate in an instant. She stood by Black,

her fourth husband, and they now live in Canada. In 2019, he was formally pardoned by President Trump,

and he still insists that he was

unfairly treated. But what about her? She's chosen to write a memoir, shocking, and it's frank

recognition of greed, manipulation, and selfishness amongst the super rich. At a time when political

anger at the gulf between the have-mosts and have-nothings is rising,

why has she chosen to spill these toxic beans? Well, Barbara Amil joins me now from Toronto.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. Good to be here. Pleasure to have you on the show.

Let us begin by discussing your memoir, friends and enemies that you wrote

last year. Most people write memoirs, I would say, to make themselves look good. Your memoir,

perhaps you would agree, didn't really do that. So why did you write it? I don't know whether it made me

look good or bad, but to be perfectly

honest, I try to be honest. When you reach the stage in life that I've reached 80, there is really

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