Earlier, I covered People Magazine’s cover story this week, a splashy exclusive with Martha Stewart for Martha’s birthday week (she just turned 85 a few days ago). Within the interview, Martha was asked about whether she still socializes and goes out to parties. Martha began her answer by describing how much she dislikes cocktail parties but she still enjoys a good dinner party. Then, rather suddenly, she dropped a fantastic piece of gossip: “I had dinner with Meghan Markle the other night. We were both guests at a dinner party in California. And she had just gotten back from the palace. I didn’t talk to her really more than to say a couple words, but I know she was talking about it.” I expressed my joy that Martha still delivers such high-quality gossip, but the royalists have declared a Code Red Emergency over this piping hot tea. Can you imagine their fury?? The thought of Meghan being invited to a dinner party and speaking about the Highgrove meeting! IN CALIFORNIA!! From Tom Sykes’ latest Royalist piece:
“I had dinner with Meghan Markle the other night,” [Martha Stewart] said. “We were both guests at a dinner party in California. And she had just gotten back from the palace. I didn’t talk to her really more than to say a couple words, but I know she was talking about it.”
“It,” of course, is the Highgrove summit, the private July reunion between Harry, Meghan, their children and the King, a meeting whose repetition depends on no briefing.
Meghan discussing a family meeting with friends over dinner doesn’t in itself wreck the arrangement. And so far, that is the beginning and the end of the story: Martha Stewart says she heard Meghan was talking about it. Full stop.
But consider the mechanics. Martha, by her own account, exchanged barely a couple of words with Meghan, and still came away knowing she was discussing her meeting with the King. That fact traveled across a dinner party, into Martha’s ear, and out into the pages of People magazine, which may explain a certain nervousness in royal circles, because it raises the obvious questions: whose house? Which night? Who else was at that table? And do any of them know any journalists?
If actual content starts to emerge (what Meghan said about Charles, about Camilla, about the atmosphere in the room) this becomes a genuine problem, because it would breach the one condition that made the meeting possible: omerta.
It is also a neat illustration of why the palace has been so reticent about these reunions. The two camps now inhabit different worlds with different rules. In the circles the Windsors move in, nobody at a British dinner party would dream of relaying to a magazine what William or Kate had been discussing at the table; it simply isn’t done. In Montecito, table talk is a renewable resource. I’m quite sure Martha doesn’t think she did anything wrong, and she didn’t. That’s rather the point.
Yes, they’re furious because Meghan went to a dinner party in California and probably answered some questions about her family’s recent travels. I would also like to know who hosted the party and who asked the questions, not to mention what Meghan actually said. But I want to know because I’m genuinely curious and I’m a professional gossip. The royalists want to know because this continues to be their worst case scenario. A “rogue” duchess, living in California, invited to elite dinner parties, discreetly answering questions about briefly meeting with her father-in-law, and it all comes out because Martha Stewart (of all people) spilled it to People Magazine. This is also why they’re so furious about Meghan’s Instagram: it’s always been about control, and it’s always been about silencing Meghan specifically.
As for the “omerta” part of Sykes’ column… lmao. Post-Highgrove Summit, all of the gossip has come from one side, and that side is not in Montecito. Since July 10th, we’re heard that Queen Camilla “left Ray Mill in quite a hurry” to meet up with the Sussexes. We’ve heard, via Camilla and Charles’ favorite biographer Robert Jobson, that Camilla attended the summit as a “witness.” We’ve heard that Charles and Camilla both wanted time with “their grandchildren,” Archie and Lili. Those stories are not coming from Montecito. Team Sussex would never refer to Archie and Lili as Camilla’s grandkids. Team Sussex would not brief about Cammy hauling ass to Highgrove. So it’s not so much about the Windsor Omerta as much as it’s about who controls the story.
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s Instagram and Netflix.
Ugh, as soon as I saw that quote from Martha I knew that the rota rats would jump all over it.
Martha just threw the rota rats a bone and Sykco ran with it. She didn’t say she heard her, but she “knows” she was talking about it.
There will be supposition for days about a woman who was in the same space as Meghan and wanted to be part of the story.
Martha knew exactly what she was doing. Just like she did when she queried whether or not Meghan was genuine in pursuing her network series (what an odd deranger thing to say). I am so peeved because I supported that woman and her Living magazine even when she was in prison but no more. Martha Stewart is a total b*tch.
Okay, I think I know where this is coming from now. I was wondering if Martha Stewart hung around New York socialites that hated Meghan or something (Princes Trust suck-ups) but it turns out that she hangs out with Chuck and Cowmilla herself!
In April, Martha attended the Princes Trust gala that Charles and Camilla attended and upon entering the venue she was asked something about meeting Prince Charles and she said something like: oh you mean “Chuck”?
So, she knows Charles and Camilla and has socialized with them before. Let’s ask Martha if Charles and Camilla gossiped about Meghan with her.
I’ve just seen a headline :
Martha Stewart spills beans on Meghan’s ill advised conversations.
Plus several other variations.
So much for all the Martha just name dropping comments. She absolutely meant to put Meghan in it.
The entire story rests on an unspecified “it,” expanded by Tom Sykes into an assumption that “it” specifically means the King, when Martha’s own quote never actually confirms that. Meghan could have been talking about Portugal, about Althorp, about jet lag, about literally anything from a multi country trip, and yet Martha the Karen and Tom decided it was about the Highgrove Summit.
Highgrove isn’t a palace. Martha heard Meghan utter the word “palace” without any content. Maybe someone asked Meghan about the rooms or decor of Buckingham Palace? Or the 2 nutjobs dancing the mama dance in the state rooms of Buckingham Palace after Meghan’s video went viral? Maybe someone asked how is life at a palace? To which Meghan would have answered “no idea”.
Of course the British tabloid rats spin a tale around one word, as if Meghan took the microphone to inform everyone listening every detail of the Highgrove meeting and shared photos taken despite Charles’s wishes.
Eyeroll. Thanks Martha.
@Lurker — all due respect, but this is how this nonsense gets amplified.
There’s no indication from Martha’s remark that Princess Meghan even used the word “palace.”
The quote above reads:
“[Martha Stewart] said. “We were both guests at a dinner party in California.
>>>>And she had just gotten back from the palace.<<<>>>l
(Emphasis mine.)
So Martha is stating that Meghan just "got back from the palace." It's highly unlikely Meg herself would characterize the trip to Highgrove that way, not least because, as someone else pointed out, Highgrove is not a palace. It's a country house.
So, any speculation about what Meg meant or why she might have used that word is already accepting an unsubstantiated premise.
And I'm with those who feel Martha seems to like causing a bit of trouble for Meghan, in the way she speaks about her. Or she just likes to stir the pot in general.
But Martha clearly isn't interested in taking any kind of care not to cause a problem for a woman who's been massively bullied and attacked by a hugely powerful group of people for a decade.
So thanks for that, Martha. Go on and hang out with the Leftovers, that's where you belong. Slurp some gin with them and talk about what it's like spending time in prison.
It does serve as a helpful reminder to the Windsors that they aren’t the only one with media contacts and access, though.
Meghan probably didn’t even say anything of note to anyone there, but Martha loves attention and making it known that she’s an insider in exclusive spaces.
Meghan may have been talking about their vacation or Althorp with Spencer family.
This exactly. She could have been talking about the visit to Althorp or the trip to Scotland or the fun at the beach in Portugal. And/or about how different the weather was between the 3 places. Anything *but* Highgrove! It’s been years since she last spoke about her husband’s ‘family’ ie the BRF. Why would she start now?
Sure, for a month EVERYBODY has been talking about how Meghan went to Highgrove. If Meghan said anything more than that, it would be in the tabloids already.
If meghan had said anything more than “well we just got back from England, the kids are excited to be home” or something, Martha would have made it her business to eavesdrop better, lol. She clearly didn’t say anything more than that or else Martha, that big gossip as discussed in the other thread, would have tried to hear every word.
Absolutely, I can see her leaning waaaaay over. And I love the handwavey “I had dinner with Meghan Markle the other night.” Lol, you and how many others, Martha?
Meghan hasn’t uttered a peep about the RF in almost 6 years, she’s not going to start talking at a dinner party.
Meghan was probably asked about her summer and she replied. Who cares? Those gutter rats are more annoyed about the dinner party than what was said. They look for table scraps to vilify this woman and she really does not pay them ay attention. The most she probably said is the children met their grandfather, so what? Stewed has no clue what was said or not said.
Geez. The tabloids are assuming quite a lot that ‘IT’ is Highgrove. Meghan may not have mentioned the meeting with the King at all, and is referring to one of the other homes/families they visited while overseas. Love that they’re losing their minds over what Meghan’s saying (or not saying) though.
Stay mad Tom Sucks! Better keep up with your blood pressure meds tho! As for Martha, look who’s clout chasing now! Plus Meghan never visited a “palace”, she visited Highgrove and Althorp. And she could have been talking about the weather. But of course the Left-behinds always think they are the center of the universe.
All of that. 🎯
Martha knew this would happen. Such a witchy thing to do. If I’m Meghan’s rep I’d ask them to contact Martha, why stop at a brief mention why not tell them exactly what Meghan said since she wants to be messy
Exactly! Funny how whatever Meghan was supposed to have said is not mentioned.
💯💯💯, @em
This is Tom Sykes being a psycho again. Meghan has free will and agency. If she wants to talk about her trip to the UK she can. I suspect that Meghan was just answering a question about her visit to the UK. And even if she said that she had a nice visit at Highgrove she is not exposing any details. The gumption of Syko to be talking about omerta when the Royal Family have leaked stories about Meghan and smeared her in the press. If the Royal Family didn’t want her talking they should given her a nice pay off when she left in 2020.
No nda Meghan is free to say whatever she wants and there is a lot she has left unsaid..they should be grateful she hasn’t released a book of her own.
Highgrove is not “the Palace”. If I were at the dinner, I’d be asking Meghan about the gardens, which are supposed to be beautiful, and are open to the public. Charles is also very proud of them; that would be a good topic of conversation during an awkward get together. And it wouldn’t be a betrayal if Meghan discussed something like, Charles’ organic methods. Not to mention, she could have been talking about someplace else entirely, like Althorp, or, neither! Martha just needed a hook for her PR.
Anyway, looks like Martha gets the extra publicity she was angling for, and the rota gets another topic for their daily spew.
I hope Meghan said that cowmailla was already 2 sheets to the wind and it was only 10am when they met with her and that she smells like gin and regret and that Charles fingers are so fat that he couldn’t put the pieces of the Lego Together that Archie and lili wanted to build with him . So I just sat there and you know , took it all in and was so happy the window was open because it was enough to drunken my children from the smell she was giving off and can you imagine that Charles wanted my opinion on his Jam . 😂😂😂 however that just me . Meghan isn’t as petty as me
Hahah! “…she smells like gin and regret”. Now that’s some beautiful prose right there!
It simply isn’t done says Tom, except for when he told us all about how an earl’s daughter told him about William’s affair while at a dinner party.
😂 right? He is such capital L loser.
And this is the correct take 😂😂😂
Meghan broke the omerta by discussing something in private with her friends? Something which would have never been known, nor her attendance at a private party, OR that she discussed her visit to the UK, if Martha Stewart wasn’t gossiping to a national magazine? But Meghan broke it??
I have said forever that the biggest fear that the British media and the British royal family has is that all the secrets that they’re trying to keep about that family and what really goes on they are afraid that Harry and Meghan are discussing it with power players in private.
And not because I think that Harry and Meghan are particularly gossipy. I think that they are just worried that there are people out there with power that know the real deal. Which is why they’re always trying to ruin their philanthropy, business endeavors, and bully governments into not welcoming them. And why they they hyper focus on them and are super critical because they want to paint them as paranoid, or liars. They need to control the narrative and they definitely don’t want people who are powerful seeing behind the curtain.
It’s better to laugh than cry. To believe that Meghan talk about the royals have reached a certain level of comedy. Sykes like Eden are chief clowns regarding the Sussex.
I really doubt she was talking about meeting the Windsors. Not while she’s eating. More likely she was describing the lovely vacation the family just had.
Martha Stewart is older then Charles? Man, Charles is really old fashioned
Bet that is the excuse they are going to use for the palace sharing information with the media.
Unfortunately, this I can now see. The palace will leak something and will claim it must’ve come from this California dinner party.
I guess Martha Stewart is this month’s ’Brooke Shields’.
Gwyneth Paltrow shut down the BM’s attempt to funnel Sussex Hate through her as a high profile American. That makes her more savvy than Martha Stewart, who could have foreseen that?!
Americans are learning one ‘can’t’ play at snark about Meghan in the ordinary media landscape they are used to, any attempt, (and Paltrow did try to have it both ways before she shut that down) gets dragged into the BM’s toxic maw. Martha is too self centered to parse all that.
“The children played in William’s tree house!!”
Meghan, to the rest of the table
“omerta”. So now the Windsors are Mafia?
Well, they are, aren’t they? Sometimes Sykes lets the truth slip out. Whenever I see Sykes name, I think of the psycho character in Dickens’ novel.
The Windsors make the Mafia look like amateurs.
Yeah, did someone not give Sykes the memo?
I’ve always found it interesting that they use the term “omerta”, which is generally associated with, you know, criminality…
I was more annoyed that Martha called her Meghan Markle. That’s just me though.
Oh no, it’s not @ChillinginDC! I felt it also…my policy towards anyone publicly calling her MM is to DISCOUNT IMMEDIATELY…because that is no longer who she is, and they are trying to tie her to the past, not her now, not her future.
Meh, Kate gets Kate Middleton all of the time. It cracks me up when People mag does it bc the derangers lose their minds lol.
@Becks Martha called her that. And since it’s come out that she doesn’t like it when people take away her actual real last night the same name she has with her husband and kids it’s an issue. It’s one more thing to take away from her.
I don’t expect Sykes to be astute enough to figure this out, but maybe the Sussexes do not care whether they have a subsequent meeting with Charles and that thing he married. In their minds, this could have been a one and done.
The Rota, royal experts, courtiers, etc. all like to dangle the possibility of a future meeting and “a welcome back into the royal fold” in their desperate, clawing attempts to control Meghan and Harry’s behavior after the fact. But they have nothing to offer in return to a happy couple living in literal paradise who have agency over their own lives. Nice try though. Stay stressed and bitter.
I like to think that Martha is trolling the RF
I posted just yesterday, Gore Vidal once described Queen Elizabeth II as having “a whiff of Vito Corleone.” LOL. But *why* the raging paranoia? The discretion around the late Queen was just that, respect, discretion, in acknowledgement of her own famous capacity for resisting temptation to gossip. Or her own famous resistance to any pressure to pander to the public through the media. She preferred to just get out and mingle. You don’t need spin and hype if you can look your subjects in the eye and smile.
Not the Duchess breaking protocol once again? Talking about her summer vacation at a dinner party? What ever will she do next? The RR continue to be appalled that she won’t just stay home and be quiet. It literally enrages them. If your family puts such strict conditions on your interaction with them and with others, they are not your family. Martha was being messy on purpose. She’s hardly a girls girl. I loathe anyone who says anything that can be taken as negative or even neutral about Meghan at this point. We have all witnessed the abuse from the RR and RM daily for almost a decade now. Choosing to join in is not accidental, it’s cruel. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t comment at all.
Exactly
Meghan is SAVVY. She carefully chooses what she shares and what she divulges. There is no way she’s going to leak private family stuff with the royals to a whole dinner party table with Martha Big Ears Stewart sitting a few seats away. Martha was trying to be provocative to keep herself relevant – remember her remarks about hoping her friends would die so she could scoop their husbands? Tom Sucks aka Syke-o is like the guy who used to dig in Dylan’s trash in NYC. He’s just a desperate clown trying to earn his drug money or something and pretending he’s operating under some imaginary principles.
Deep respect for Martha having served her time and being a cultural icon who hangs with Snoop on the up and up. Messy though the mention of Meghan is amongst many things that could or could not have been said is these two women are traveling in the same space and are American self made queens who don’t even have to worry about the British Rupert Murdock press they make news by existing. I like that.
Interesting that Stewart said they exchanged a few words but didn’t say what they talked about. If Meghan was at a party in California, she obviously hadn’t just gotten back from the palace. Discussing her visit could be anything so I think she, as any normal person would, was talking about the summer vacation we saw on her Instagram. Do I think she was giving a recount of the meeting with Charles, I seriously doubt that.
A lot of assumptions about what Meghan ‘probably’ said. Unless someone in attendance shares specifics why worry? If Martha had said she saw Meghan at a dinner party and left it at that, the reaction would be, “See, Meghan has friends and travels in wealthy circles!”
I was a fan of Martha’s back in the day. I saved her magazines after years-long subscriptions, and have a couple of her cookbooks. But Martha has become a snarky beeyotch, especially regarding Meghan. It gives garden variety envy, twinged with old fashioned mean-girl racism.
I don’t think we should fall into the rota’s trap of making whatever Meghan said bigger than the nondescriptive generalities she likely offered.
And we’re doing this by freaking out about Martha’s comments. She’s a savvy media operator — she used Meghan’s names for clicks. That’s it.
Martha did appear to use Meghan’s name for clicks, and for that she gets a pat on the head from Tom Syko by his saying that he doesn’t think that Martha did anything wrong. But we all know by now that Meghan will be the only one to pay the price for Martha’s words. I mean, saying that Meghan “breached the omerta” is a bit much when one doesn’t know what was said. And, at this stage in life, I refuse to parse what the meaning of what “it” is, to coin a phrase.
Martha can be shady AF, and I don’t love “I heard Meghan talking about Charles,” or “it’s hard for a princess to enter the living space,” however vague these are.
Wondering how Meghan even came up in this interview. Is Martha really going around clout-chasing Meghan? Guessing the interviewer asked Martha what she thinks of Meghan breaking into the living space and, Martha being Martha, this vague shade is what she gave.
But even Sykes can’t spin this into “Martha overheard Meghan talking about Charles’ health/Camilla’s smoking/their coldness.” And that’s something.
Well, we know Martha Stewart lies about her face and is a convicted felon, so I’m not sure we can trust anything she says.
“She was found guilty by a federal jury on March 5, 2004, for LYING to federal investigators about why she sold her ImClone Systems stock in December 2001, and for TRYING TO COVER UP the stockbroker’s tip.”
The Daily Express ran with the story and in it Stewart is quoted as saying “I don’t know what she was saying” But Sykes assumes Meghan was talking about the Highgrove meeting without any evidence whatsoever. Sykes conveniently overlooks the fact that Meghan and Harry had been in Europe before going to the UK, then supposedly gone to Scotland, Allthorpe was also on the agenda, meeting the King was for an hour only. With all of that activity Sykes states Meghan is talking about meeting the King, really?
Meghan doesn’t owe the royals sh*t. Omerta is a two-way street, it means you are buying someone’s silence in return for something they value. They never gave her anything of value, they only made her life immeasurably harder. They stole her private correspondence and put it on the front page of their newspapers. They trash her and spread lies about her to this day. She is a 45-year-old wealthy American businesswoman with zero f*cks to give. She was entitled to say everything she said to Netflix and to Oprah—and much more—and she can say whatever the hell she wants at a private dinner party in California. The RF and BM can suck lemons if they don’t like it, this is a mess they created.
Meghan “talking about ‘it'” could be (and probably is) as innocuous as saying, after being asked, “yes, England was lovely. We got to see Harry’s father and uncle’s family.” Period. The BM IS INSANE!
So the English royal family are now the Mafiosa? Because Omerta is absolute silence regarding criminal action of “the family” AND maintaining silence when you are the victim of “the family’s” crimes against you. But that silence includes governmental employees, the police or any other quasi “official” organization. The laws of Omerta are that you handle the crimes against you outside the law, meaning privately. So if a Mafiosa kills your sister, you keep your mouth shut and then kill the Mafiosa ‘s sister (preferably in a restaurant). So transferring this mob mentality back to the royals, Meghan can avenge her own wrongs freely. In this situation, she can and should say anything she damn pleases to friends, relatives, whomever, as long as it does not become police business. So she won’t go to the Montecito police to rat out that nasty family, but she can personally seek her own vengeance privately. Now, of course, Meghan is a true lady and I’m sure she is (as she always has been) behaving completely appropriately (despite the malice and intended crimes of the Royal Mafia in England).
I don’t think they’ve thought this through. 😂
Why does every meeting have to be a “summit” with these people?
That’s how you know that they aren’t emotionally attached or connected to Archie and Lilibet because they don’t want to be. No grandparent wants to have a meeting with their grandchildren without photos or videos to cherish when they aren’t around each other. Them calling it a Summit is how you know how cold and unfeeling they are about the Sussex children. They only offered them at the most 45 minutes to an hour and have no private talks or communication outside of a Summit. Nothing about these people is normal or okay. Archie and Lilibet are fortunate that their parents took them away from royal life. The fact that they want us to believe that photos weren’t allowed, to me has alway made the left behinds look worse because it was essentially a business meeting with little children present. Nothing familial or personal about 45 minutes with children Charles claims to not have seen in four years. I personally don’t even believe he met them four years ago because you notice how there was never any talks about photos not being allowed back then and no talks about the Sussexes not being allowed to talk about that meeting.
” talking about it”. I took it to mean the whole trip and all the changing of plans etc.
Why does the media have to assume that Meghan is guilty, she went to lots of different places, Portugal, Scotland, Highgrove and Althorp. None of us know what she was talking about, and yet she gets blamed for talking about the one thing she was forbidden to talk about, Guilty until proven innocent and then they won’t believe her anyway. What this ban does tell us though is that the royals are a weird, neurotic family, normal people do not ban their family members from talking about the visit unless they have done something to be ashamed of.
The alleged agreement for this meeting was that non photos were to be taken and no leaks to the media about the meeting. The moment the meeting was over Buckingham Palace has not only leaked that the meeting happened but they have leaked who was there, when they arrived and why they were there. Once again the palaces are showing that it’s okay for them to do things but it’s absolutely not okay for the biracial duchess to do something similar or to a lesser extent. Martha gave a brief description of what Meghan supposedly said privately to friends about a palace that could mean a number of places besides the non palace of Highgrove. No one knows anything about all the places they visited while on vacation and obviously nothing Meghan said nearly a month ago was detrimental to the royal family. So Psycho Sykes needs to go lay on a couch somewhere and talk to someone professional.
Martha the Messy didn’t even claim that Princess Meghan used the word “palace.” That was Martha’s characterization of the timing of the dinner party, that Meg had “just gotten back from the palace” and “I know she was talking about it.”
Once again, a vague statement from Martha that can’t be treated as slanderous, but can absolutely be picked up and run with by the tabloids press and derangers. Which she knew perfectly well when she said it.
I never liked Martha much, and the more I see of her final act the more I think she’s untrustworthy at best and definitely an outright bully.
Thing is, Martha said nothing about content. And neither has anyone else. If Meghan was having *that* much to say about the whole experience, don’t we think it would have gotten out by now? I’m sure MS was poop-stirring, she needs to keep her name out there. At the end of the day, we’ve heard nothing about what was said at that gathering so Meghan was either not talking much or the people she surrounds herself with are actually discrete not people pretending to be then running to Tom Sykes. I’ve never seen a group of people works o hard to be offended.
Sardonic wow, Great last sentence ! And so true, too!
Sykes is joking isn’t he about no one discussing Wank amd what they sau at British dinner parties? Has he heard of Giles Coren?
“In the circles the Windsors move in, nobody at a British dinner party would dream of relaying to a magazine what William or Kate had been discussing at the table; it simply isn’t done. ”
REALLY???? Didn’t one TOM SYKES write an entire article confirming William’s affair with one Rose née Hanbury now Cholmondeley, which began with the immortal words: “It was at a dinner party that I was told by the daughter of an earl that….”? And proceeded to say that yes indeed, the news was being discussed at dinner parties all over Norfolk? 😀
And then subsequently sold his decrepit soul to Prince William and Jason Knauf to become their stenographer in exchange for not leaking further such tidbits? Only this doesn’t pay his bills so he keeps stalking Princess Meghan, the one who got the hell away from that viper’s nest?
The Brits talk about what’s discussed at dinner parties all the time AND they also talk about what William and Kate do/did/said at dinner parties. If they did or said anything interesting, we’d hear about it, even if they had to pay people to tell the tabloids that they attended. If they will discuss the Waleses’ affairs, they will certainly talk about what they said, but I doubt very much that either one of them attends “dinner parties” much these days, if at all. How would they keep up the pretence?
These people just LIE. It’s amazing that they don’t stroke out or get permanently debilitating whiplash from the speed and regularity with which they contradict their own words. My God.