Martha Stewart is one of a kind. She completely changed the concept of a home-chef/cook and hostess/entertainer. She was never a trained chef nor did she have any kind of education in public relations or business, but she figured it out as she went along, running a successful catering business, turning that into successful cookbooks and TV programming, then building her brand into Martha Stewart Omnimedia (which flew too close to the sun). Others have tried to follow in her path, to mixed results, but Martha was really the first lifestyle brand. She doesn’t think much of the people who have tried to copy her, nor does she think much of the people who have been inspired by her. Martha’s attitude has always been: I’m still here, so why do you need a copycat? Well, I’ve been bracing myself for months to hear Martha’s thoughts on the Duchess of Sussex’s entrance into the lifestyle/cooking arena. Martha sort of pulled a Mariah. Instead of “I don’t know her,” we’re getting “Has it started?”
Martha Stewart hasn’t watched Meghan Markle’s Netflix show. While promoting her upcoming NBC culinary competition series, Yes, Chef!, on Access Hollywood, Stewart was questioned about With Love, Meghan, Markle’s new Netflix show that launched on March 4 to cruel reviews and much mockery. Stewart’s response: “Has it started?”
Informed that, yes, it was indeed available to view, Stewart replied that she was “curious” and willing to give it a try. “I’ll watch an episode and see how she does,” she added.
Stewart’s co-host on the new show, celebrity chef and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés, a friend of Meghan’s, was more generous in his assessment of Meghan, saying: “I love Meghan, that she puts herself out there.”
Andrés also clapped back at Tina Brown and Justine Bateman’s suggestion that Meghan and Harry came across as “disaster tourists” in the wake of the California wildfires, saying that she was “not trying to take attention or anything to herself, on the contrary.” He added, “It was great that she was there, like many others, front and center, one more Angeleno next to people that needed hope and empathy.”
I’m actually going to give Martha the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, it’s more than possible that her intention was to be sort of shady and “her?” But it’s also possible that she just didn’t know that WLM was released last month. The thing about the British tabloids and the Daily Beast is that they are singularly obsessed with every single thing Meghan does and says and they can’t even comprehend that other people aren’t equally obsessed. Meghan has many loyal fans who follow her and support her work, but she also has casual fans, people who just check in what she’s doing every so often. I’m just saying, it doesn’t seem that weird to me that someone who is not chronically online (like Martha) or a habitual consumer of royalist hate-media wouldn’t have known that WLM was released in March. That being said, I mostly think Martha was being shady!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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