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"She may have married a prince, but Ameerah Al-Taweel, 26, wants only one happy ending: equal rights for women everywhere. Now CEO of Time Entertainment, a premier talent agency in Saudi Arabia, Al-Taweel, photographed in Bel Air, California, hopes she can place more Saudi actresses in powerful roles in television and movies. Ameerah Al-Taweel&amp;#x27;s story starts like a Disney script: Raised by her divorced mom and her grandparents in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, she landed the opportunity of a lifetime at age 18, when she requested&amp;amp;mdash;and got&amp;amp;mdash;an interview with Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal for a school paper. Their 10-minute meeting turned into two hours. &amp;quot;We just clicked,&amp;quot; she says. He was equally smitten, and nine months later they wed. In most fairy tales that&amp;#x27;s where the credits would have rolled&amp;amp;mdash;with Al-Taweel a bona fide princess, married to one of the 30 richest people in the world. But for her, it was just the beginning: &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#x27;t want to be that girl who&amp;#x27;s not doing anything,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I wanted to make an impact.&amp;quot; It wasn&amp;#x27;t easy. &amp;quot;This is a country where most employers require that women get their guardian&amp;#x27;s permission to work and where the testimony of one man equals that of two women,&amp;quot; says Betty Bernstein-Zabza, senior policy adviser at the Secretary&amp;#x27;s Office of Global Women&amp;#x27;s Issues at the U.S. Department of State. &amp;quot;Public appearances are not something many wives do.&amp;quot; Still, Al-Taweel stepped into the spotlight, cohelming Prince Alwaleed&amp;#x27;s charity, the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundations, and becoming a vocal advocate for women&amp;#x27;s civil rights&amp;amp;mdash;including the right to drive, inherit equally, and retain custody of children after divorce. This being real life, though, and not a fairy tale, there was another wrinkle: Al-Taweel and the prince divorced last year. It was an amicable split (she still calls her ex her &amp;quot;best friend&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;mentor&amp;quot;), and Al-Taweel never thought of stepping back into private life. Indeed, she&amp;#x27;s taken to the global stage, working with everyone from President Bill Clinton to Jordan&amp;#x27;s Queen Rania and the British royal family to advance the rights of women in the Middle East. &amp;quot;Ameerah&amp;#x27;s advocacy on behalf of Saudi women has provided a tremendous contribution to how we think about the rights of girls and women around the world,&amp;quot; says Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. And Al-Taweel keeps her issues front and center by asking her nearly one million Twitter and Instagram followers to stay involved, most recently by donating vital supplies to Syrian refugees&amp;amp;mdash;supplies she then took to the camps herself. &amp;quot;Saudi women are doing incredible things, and we&amp;#x27;re making progress all the time,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I want to be the one women look to when they tell their daughters, &amp;#x27;Look, she got a divorce and see what she&amp;#x27;s doing now? She&amp;#x27;s an independent woman. She&amp;#x27;s doing something good for her country. She&amp;#x27;s a role model.&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; Her words to live by: &amp;quot;Throw yourself to the edge that you&amp;#x27;re always scared of. Try being independent; do it your way. You&amp;#x27;ll love it.&amp;quot; This story appeared in the May issue of Glamour. Look for it on newsstands April 15, or subscribe now for instant access to the digital edition."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2014/04/ameerah-al-taweel-the-power-princess-of-womens-rights>