G
Guest
Guest
Who in hell is this woman? I deleted really boring bits and a para promoting her high'n'mighty's book. - Perdita
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The Princess Diatribes By ALEX KUCZYNSKI, NYTimes
ONE could not pick a much worse place in New York City to pitch a public hissy fit than Da Silvano, the tightly packed Greenwich Village restaurant that is famously popular with gossip columnists, and the people gossip columnists like to put in their gossip columns.
So it was bad enough that Princess Michael of Kent, known to the press in England as the Pushy Princess, exploded in a decidedly unroyal pique at a table of noisy diners last Monday night, and exhorted them, in the words of the diners, to "go back to the colonies."
But it was worse that the diners she yelled at were well-connected black New Yorkers. The five diners — a banker, a music industry executive, a lawyer, a public relations consultant and a television reporter — construed her remark as racist.
Princess Michael told The New York Post, which first reported the incident on Wednesday, that she said, "You should remember the colonies," a remark she said was meant to remind the boisterous diners of a time when people had manners.
The princess had been visiting New York before attending the graduation of her daughter, Lady Gabriella Windsor, from Brown University, in Providence, R.I., which is scheduled for tomorrow.
For Princess Michael, the episode of restaurant rage is just another incident in a résumé of sometimes out-of-bounds behavior. And the headlines from around the world (England, France, Italy, Scotland, Australia) — "Fury at Royal Colonies Jibe" and "Outrage at Royal Racism" — are doing nothing to help her out of this, her latest public relations pickle.
. . .
A canvass of New Yorkers in the Upper East Side swim last week yielded both approving and disapproving anecdotes. One guest at a benefit lunch for New York-Presbyterian Hospital, held two weeks ago, said she and her table mates were shocked to notice Princess Michael talking loudly on a cellphone after guests had been seated and the audience had been asked to remain quiet during speeches.
. . .
In England, where the press is famous for its tendency to pigeonhole members of the royal family for life, the tabloids long ago began referring to Princess Michael as "Princess Pushy" and "Pushy Galore." The names have stuck.
. . .
In 1986, Princess Michael outraged members of the royal family when she said in a magazine interview conducted by Carol Thatcher, the daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that she came from a "better background than anyone else who's married into the royal family since the war, excepting Prince Philip." She also criticized the English people for lacking ambition and complained that her public obligations as princess were boring.
Mrs. Clark, the princess' New York host, who has known her for 30 years, said Princess Michael told her a version of the events at Da Silvano different from that of the adjacent table. "She told me that when they decided to move tables, she said, `Let's go to the colonies,' " Mrs. Clark said, explaining that "the colonies" would refer to the restaurant's back room, or "Siberia."
"I have never been to this restaurant, but I hear that it is very noisy," Mrs. Clark said. "They must have heard the word 'colonies' and taken it the wrong way." Nicole Young, a public relations consultant who was one of the guests on the receiving end of Princess Michael's comments, said that wasn't the case. "From the time she got there, she made it clear she was not happy," Ms. Young said last week.
At the moment the princess was placing her order with the waiter, Ms. Young's table, engaged in noisy banter, exploded in laughter. "So she leans over, in between me and a friend of mine, and slams her hand on the table and says, `Enough already!' " Ms. Young said. "The restaurant goes silent. Then she said, in this tone, 'You've got to quiet down. We can't even hear the waiter.' "
After the princess withdrew, Ms. Young said, her friends decided to get even louder just to further irritate the princess. "O.K., so maybe that was rude, but whatever," Ms. Young said. "Now, of course, we're talking louder than ever and we're laughing at her. So she gets the waiter to move her to another table. As she comes walking by, she stops and says right into A. J.'s ear, 'Go back to the colonies.' And she moves on."
A. J. Calloway, Ms. Young's table mate, who is a television correspondent for the show "Extra" and a host on Black Entertainment Television, said that at first he thought the princess' behavior was a joke. "It was so outrageous, at first I was like, 'O.K., whose friend is she?' " Mr. Calloway said on Friday. He said he was disappointed that the princess was denying their story.
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The Princess Diatribes By ALEX KUCZYNSKI, NYTimes
ONE could not pick a much worse place in New York City to pitch a public hissy fit than Da Silvano, the tightly packed Greenwich Village restaurant that is famously popular with gossip columnists, and the people gossip columnists like to put in their gossip columns.
So it was bad enough that Princess Michael of Kent, known to the press in England as the Pushy Princess, exploded in a decidedly unroyal pique at a table of noisy diners last Monday night, and exhorted them, in the words of the diners, to "go back to the colonies."
But it was worse that the diners she yelled at were well-connected black New Yorkers. The five diners — a banker, a music industry executive, a lawyer, a public relations consultant and a television reporter — construed her remark as racist.
Princess Michael told The New York Post, which first reported the incident on Wednesday, that she said, "You should remember the colonies," a remark she said was meant to remind the boisterous diners of a time when people had manners.
The princess had been visiting New York before attending the graduation of her daughter, Lady Gabriella Windsor, from Brown University, in Providence, R.I., which is scheduled for tomorrow.
For Princess Michael, the episode of restaurant rage is just another incident in a résumé of sometimes out-of-bounds behavior. And the headlines from around the world (England, France, Italy, Scotland, Australia) — "Fury at Royal Colonies Jibe" and "Outrage at Royal Racism" — are doing nothing to help her out of this, her latest public relations pickle.
. . .
A canvass of New Yorkers in the Upper East Side swim last week yielded both approving and disapproving anecdotes. One guest at a benefit lunch for New York-Presbyterian Hospital, held two weeks ago, said she and her table mates were shocked to notice Princess Michael talking loudly on a cellphone after guests had been seated and the audience had been asked to remain quiet during speeches.
. . .
In England, where the press is famous for its tendency to pigeonhole members of the royal family for life, the tabloids long ago began referring to Princess Michael as "Princess Pushy" and "Pushy Galore." The names have stuck.
. . .
In 1986, Princess Michael outraged members of the royal family when she said in a magazine interview conducted by Carol Thatcher, the daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that she came from a "better background than anyone else who's married into the royal family since the war, excepting Prince Philip." She also criticized the English people for lacking ambition and complained that her public obligations as princess were boring.
Mrs. Clark, the princess' New York host, who has known her for 30 years, said Princess Michael told her a version of the events at Da Silvano different from that of the adjacent table. "She told me that when they decided to move tables, she said, `Let's go to the colonies,' " Mrs. Clark said, explaining that "the colonies" would refer to the restaurant's back room, or "Siberia."
"I have never been to this restaurant, but I hear that it is very noisy," Mrs. Clark said. "They must have heard the word 'colonies' and taken it the wrong way." Nicole Young, a public relations consultant who was one of the guests on the receiving end of Princess Michael's comments, said that wasn't the case. "From the time she got there, she made it clear she was not happy," Ms. Young said last week.
At the moment the princess was placing her order with the waiter, Ms. Young's table, engaged in noisy banter, exploded in laughter. "So she leans over, in between me and a friend of mine, and slams her hand on the table and says, `Enough already!' " Ms. Young said. "The restaurant goes silent. Then she said, in this tone, 'You've got to quiet down. We can't even hear the waiter.' "
After the princess withdrew, Ms. Young said, her friends decided to get even louder just to further irritate the princess. "O.K., so maybe that was rude, but whatever," Ms. Young said. "Now, of course, we're talking louder than ever and we're laughing at her. So she gets the waiter to move her to another table. As she comes walking by, she stops and says right into A. J.'s ear, 'Go back to the colonies.' And she moves on."
A. J. Calloway, Ms. Young's table mate, who is a television correspondent for the show "Extra" and a host on Black Entertainment Television, said that at first he thought the princess' behavior was a joke. "It was so outrageous, at first I was like, 'O.K., whose friend is she?' " Mr. Calloway said on Friday. He said he was disappointed that the princess was denying their story.
