A Daily Mail column on Wednesday recounted a string of anecdotes and observations about First Lady Melania Trump’s role at an upcoming State banquet, King Charles’s household preferences and other society gossip tied to recent high-profile visits.
Writing under the Ephraim Hardcastle byline, the column said Melania Trump is scheduled to sit beside King Charles at the State banquet and offered a light-hearted warning about the monarch’s reported clumsiness with food, citing an anecdote attributed to broadcaster Mariella Frostrup. The piece also revisited a long-running claim by former US president Donald Trump about the late Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles considering the purchase of an apartment in Trump Tower, which Trump described in his memoir The Art of the Deal.
The column reported that aides to the former president inspected his suite at Windsor Castle ahead of the visit and provided housekeepers with bedding, describing King Charles as being “very fussy” about his sheets and preferring fine Egyptian cotton. A courtier quoted in the piece suggested the additional bedding may have been brought by the visiting party rather than the royal household, and the column noted speculation that Mr. Trump’s tanning products were a factor in the decision to supply separate linens.
Hardcastle’s column quoted Trump’s own account from The Art of the Deal, in which Trump recounted refusing to confirm or deny a rumor that the royal couple were considering buying an apartment at his New York development, a move the former president said generated international press attention. The column presented the anecdote as Trump’s version of events and noted it could have caused discomfort between the two families.
The piece relied on a mixture of named and unnamed sources for several of its observations. The description of the King’s reported dining mishaps came via Frostrup, who the column said had told guests at a Highgrove dinner that peas sometimes end up on the monarch’s plate because of his clumsiness. The column framed the anecdote as light social colour rather than an official account from Buckingham Palace.
Also mentioned were sidelined items of social news: the firing of James Hughes-Onslow after 18 years as the Memorial Service correspondent for The Oldie, which the column linked to a dispute with the magazine’s editor, Harry Mount. The piece included a claim attributed to Hughes-Onslow about Mount’s father, Sir Ferdinand Mount, expressing concern that the younger Mount had not produced an heir. Separately, the column recounted colourful family stories about the late brewing heiress Maureen Guinness, drawn from a Radio Times interview with her granddaughter, Ivana Lowell.
Buckingham Palace and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the impressions recounted in the column. The column appears amid wider media attention on the diplomatic visit and the ceremonial elements surrounding State events, where seating arrangements, household preparations and social rituals often prompt scrutiny and commentary in the press.
The Daily Mail column ran on Sept. 17, 2025, and combined historical references with present-day social reporting, a format typical of its opinion and society pages. Several of the items cited rely on personal recollections and unnamed court sources, and the piece presented them as anecdotes and recollections rather than official statements from the institutions involved.