The Daily Mail Could Not Praise Kate’s Pasta Without Dragging Meghan Into It

Kate Middleton’s two‑day trip to Italy was supposed to be about early childhood education. But this is the British tabloid press we are talking about. So, of course, the Daily Mail could not let Kate’s tortelli moment stand on its own. The headline said it all: “Kate shows Meghan how it’s done! Princess of Wales’s pasta‑making skills are praised by Italian chef – after Duchess’ controversial spaghetti recipe left fans outraged.”

Kate Middleton made pasta with an Italian chef. But the Daily Mail turned it into an attack on Meghan Sussex’s Netflix cooking segment, With Love, Meghan. Meghan had nothing to do with this trip. She did not comment on Kate’s pasta. She was not in Italy, and she was not even mentioned in the chef’s praise. And yet her name was right there in the headline, dragged into a story about tortelli like an unwanted guest at a family dinner. The pasta was Kate’s. But the clickbait belonged to Meghan.

What actually happened?

Kate visited the Casa della Pasta in Bologna, where chef Ivan Lampredi showed her how to make tortelli, a stuffed pasta similar to ravioli. Lampredi later told the press that Kate was “very good at it” and joked that he would “hire” her. Kate herself admitted that when she makes pasta at home, “it goes everywhere.” Frankly, we believe her. The last time she cooked in public, that pancake looked like it had been through a constitutional crisis.

But the Daily Mail could not resist the contrast. They dredged up Meghan’s skillet spaghetti from With Love, Meghan, the episode where she cooked with her friend Daniel Martin, and mocked it. They re‑litigated the “noodles” controversy and quoted outrage about adding boiling water to the pan. All to create the impression that Kate’s pasta was somehow a correction of Meghan’s cooking.

Here is what the Mail conveniently ignored: Meghan’s spaghetti did not need a correction. It became the number one pasta recipe on the internet shortly after the show dropped, taking over TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Individual recreation videos racked up hundreds of thousands to millions of views. The recipe dominated food searches, inspired countless adaptations, and became a major viral food moment of 2025. Meanwhile, Kate’s tortelli got a polite chef and a Daily Mail headline. The Mail wants you to believe Kate showed Meghan how it’s done. The internet already voted, and it was not for the royal pasta.

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The media’s Meghan problem is getting embarrassing

The Daily Mail and its ilk keep insisting that Meghan Sussex is irrelevant, unpopular, and finished in Hollywood. Yet they cannot write a single story about Kate without using Meghan’s name. If Kate’s Italy trip was such a major global moment, why did the Mail need Meghan’s Netflix show to sell it? Why did the headline have to frame Kate’s pasta as “showing Meghan how it’s done” instead of just “Kate made pasta, and it was nice”?

The answer is obvious: Kate alone is not enough. Not for the tabloid click economy. The royal press has built an entire business model on the rivalry narrative. They need Meghan as the negative contrast, the “bad” royal wife against whom Kate can be elevated. Without Meghan, Kate’s pasta is just pasta. With Meghan, it becomes a weapon. That is not a compliment to Kate. It is a confession that the press cannot make her compelling on her own merits.

The double standard around food and lifestyle

Watch how this works. When Meghan cooks on Netflix, the press calls her “desperate,” “inauthentic,” and “out of touch.” They mock her language, her ingredients, her methods. When Kate makes pasta on a royal visit, the same press calls her “charming,” “natural,” and “relatable.” They highlight chef praise as if she just won MasterChef.

And the irony is delicious: the same outlets that claim Meghan is obsessed with attention cannot stop inserting her into stories where she has done absolutely nothing. Meghan did not bring up Kate’s pasta. The Daily Mail did. Meghan did not compare her spaghetti to Kate’s tortelli. The Daily Mail did. Who is really obsessed here?

Part of a larger pattern

This pasta piece was not an outlier. Kate’s entire Italy trip was framed by large parts of the British press as a rebuttal to Harry and Meghan. The Telegraph contrasted Kate’s “charm” with Harry’s “tone‑deaf” speech about antisemitism and anti‑Muslim hatred. Royal commentators mused that Kate’s solo trip proved she was “global royalty” in a way that Harry and Meghan could never be.

They cannot help themselves. Every time Kate does anything, wears a dress, waves at a crowd, or makes pasta, the comparison engine fires up. And every time, they prove that Meghan is still living rent‑free in their headlines.

If the press truly believes Kate is more relevant, more beloved, and more effective than Meghan, they should be able to praise her without mentioning her sister‑in‑law. But they cannot. Because the rivalry narrative is the only thing that makes the old royal machinery hum.