CBS Anchor Erica Hill Before her Trip to England

By Molly Stark Dean 

The wedding is still many months away, but network anchors are rushing to the U.K. anyway now that the royal wedding is on. “Today” show national correspondent Natalie Morales, GMA Weekend co-anchor Bianna Golodryga, and “The Early Show” news anchor Erica Hill are all catching flights tonight. Before Hill packed for her trip to England, she spoke with TVNewser about CBS’ royal wedding plans.

TVNewser: Are there any big interviews already set up when you get there?
Erica Hill: I’m playing phone tag right now with all of my producers. So I know we’re working on it. I don’t have the final list yet, because I know it’s not confirmed. But I can tell you it will be good stuff.
TVNewser: You got married about 5 years ago. Was it a huge spectacle or a small ceremony?
Erica Hill: It was fairly low-key and would not even compare to a royal wedding. But it was perfect for my husband and I.
TVNewser: Why do you think Americans care about British monarchs?
Erica Hill: I think there’s just something about it. Maggie Rodriguez and I were talking about this when there was first speculation of when will they get married; will they get married. Everything seems to cycle back to Charles and Diana. Where were you when you remember watching it? There just seems to be a fascination with the royal family. Part of it is probably because we don’t have a royal family in the US. The closest we get, of course, is the first family, and we saw a lot of that excitement this summer when Chelsea Clinton got married. Even when the Obamas moved into the White House, because there is young children there again. There was a lot of excitement about having a first family. But it still isn’t quite the same as having a royal family. There’s still a connection obviously, even though we won our independence from England. There’s still a connection there for a lot of people. There’s that history there. People are still attracted to the royal family or even just the idea of it.  For a lot of women, growing up, you have these fantasies of your wedding where you pretend you’re a princess and you think about your prince charming. And you get to watch that now play out for Kate Middleton who found her prince charming and is on her way to become a princess (or whatever title bestowed to her by the queen). So it’s kind of fun to live vicariously through people like that.
TVNewser: When was the last time you traveled overseas to cover a story?
Erica Hill: The last time was actually a special that I was producing on stem cell research. I was actually in King’s College in London.
TVNewser: Do you have a favorite prince?
Erica Hill: I have a prince, he’s my husband. And my two boys. I have two sweet little boys who are my little princes.
TVNewser: Do you think, after the death of Princess Diana, that there are drawbacks to media overexposure?
Erica Hill: I was actually in Paris when that happened. It was interesting to be there for it. There was a bit of dialing back at that point. Perhaps there’s more of a consciousness of the effect that all this tension and paparazzi create. There was lots of speculation of what happened, how it happened. But I think we’ve seen, especially with the celebrities in this country, that it hasn’t really stopped anything. That was 1997, if you fast forward to 2010, and I think you know even more about people. There’s less and less privacy. As an outside observer, I hope that she does as much as she can to hold onto her privacy, as much as one can being a part of the royal family.

Advertisement
Advertisement