The New ‘Ladies of London’ Spill Tea on Their Castmates

“Do I look like Margaret Thatcher?” Lady Martha Sitwell, wearing a silk leopard-print dress with a bow at the collar, bellows as she enters the bar underneath the notorious egg-shaped loos (sorry, restrooms) at kitschy London restaurant Sketch in the posh Mayfair neighborhood.

The star of Ladies of London: The New Reign is most likely referring to her hair, a perfect halo of freshly highlighted pin curls, though neither it nor her outfit particularly resemble that of the loathed (or beloved, if you run in those circles) former prime minister. Co-stars Myka Meier and Lottie Kane assure her she does not, but they’re both amazed by her new cut and color. Martha gives them an impromptu demonstration of how she achieved the bouncy ringlets, and Lottie tells her that she should go even more blonde, fully platinum maybe, like an English Marilyn Monroe.

Sitwell loves the advice and seems satisfied that she doesn’t look like bad old Maggie, though that doesn’t stop her from asking the exact same question as their colleagues Missé Beqiri and Mark-Francis Vandelli enter the circular room. Lined in bloodred benches, with a mural of people shagging across the rounded ceiling, it looks like the inside of a space capsule made for swilling gin and tonics and engaging in secret tickles under the table.

The gang is back together for the first time since a March trip to New York to promote their reboot of the Bravo classic, and there is lots of catching up to do over high tea. Meier is holding Kane’s newborn, Ezra, not at all worried he might spit up on her delicate white jumpsuit. Vandelli, in a suit tailored so sharp it could cut you, tells everyone that he just landed from Monaco, where he jetted off to see “the tennis,” before pulling Beqiri to the side to whisper about her man troubles. It’s rare that a Bravo cast this large can be in the same room together in relative peace; maybe that’s because Ladies of London’s major troublemakers, Margo Stilley, who lives most of the year in Malibu, and Kimi Murdoch, who was called to Miami on a family emergency, aren’t in attendance for this little tea party. When Vandelli learns that his nemesis Stilley won’t be in attendance, he shouts, “And I had my talons sharpened purposefully. What a waste of a manicure!”

Lady Emma Thynn is the last to arrive because she was in her London flat waiting for her dress, and the strapless baby-blue number with a jeweled appliqué at the hip was worth the tardiness. When her bestie Vandelli sees her, he tells her how disgusting she looks and that he hates her. She says she’s annoyed he’s back from Monaco so soon. This is how English people, especially those with the financial stature to adore Thatcher, tell each other “I love you.”

Or maybe that’s the secret of the relaunch of Ladies of London. It’s not just that it’s a bunch of oddballs — Sitwell’s pet magpie, Hecate, flits around her flat, often landing on her head; Vandelli lives in Oscar Wilde’s old townhouse; Murdoch loves flower crowns, Hermès, profanity, and drinking at lunch; Kane and her husband, a tailor, often wear matching suits like some kind of living art project — but they also have deep connections, some going back decades. There were misgivings among the cast about signing on to something as common as (gasp) a reality-television program, but most of them revel in spending time — and money — with each other. “Actually, I quite enjoyed filming,” Murdoch says from her sunny London terrace a week after the tea party. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m not trying to be someone else. I find it easy to be myself.” It’s giving old-school Bravo in the best possible way.

Ladies of London first launched on Bravo in 2014 as a Real Housewives–esque docudrama featuring a combination of established English ladies and American expats trying to make their way into London society with a capital S. Though it was a middling success for the network, it lasted three seasons and is considered a hidden gem by Bravo’s ardent fan base. Breakout star Caroline Stanbury would go on to anchor the short-lived Real Housewives of Dubai after relocating to the Middle East and did a stint on the most recent season of Peacock’s The Traitors, but the original’s darker legacy is the story of cast member Noelle Reno, whose fiancé died by suicide shortly after the first season finished airing (though she maintains he was pushed by the Russian mafia).

None of the current Ladies were fans of the original. “I’ll be honest with you, I could not get through two episodes,” Murdoch says. “It was so boring. It was like watching a bunch of blondes sit there and drive around and go shopping. It’s everything I loathe.”

This new iteration has been in the works for several years as producers worked to find exactly the right cast that was still a collection of Americans and Brits. Bravo has tried to reboot multiple shows in the past half-decade to mixed results; in 2023 the 13th season of The Real Housewives of New York featured an all-new cast of younger, more diverse women who didn’t seem to know each other but all wanted the boost of being on one of the biggest franchises on the biggest platform for reality television. Its first season showed promise, but its second slowed down as the women seemed more concerned with keeping their noses clean than delivering great television. Last year, Vanderpump Rules hired a brand-new collection of waitresses, bartenders, and hosts to serve up a season 12 at Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurant SUR. Fans quickly lost patience with a group who barely seemed to know each other.

The ladies haven’t had that problem, lurching out of the gate like the racehorses at Ascot. Murdoch, a Haitian American shipping heiress who has lived in London for more than 20 years and says exactly what she’s thinking as she’s thinking it, seems to be the glue of the new group. She was old friends with Ceawlin Thynn (Americans are legally not allowed to attempt to pronounce this name), the 8th Marquess of Bath who married Emma, the daughter of a Nigerian billionaire and an English socialite, making her the first Black marchioness in English history. Lady Emma met Vandelli, the son of an Italian businessman and an Englishwoman, in St.-Tropez when they were teens; Vandelli would go on to be the wit in nearly 200 episodes of E4’s Made in Chelsea, a long-running reality show much like The Hills if everyone were aristocratic and spoke without moving their jaws. (Disney+ is home to five seasons of the show.) He met Murdoch when they shared a room together at Longleat, the Thynns’ 16th-century estate that is open to the public and home to the first safari park outside Africa.

Now 36, Vandelli says Ladies of London has been the opposite of his first experience. “I was 21 when I started Made in Chelsea and I was the black sheep, I was the one person who didn’t know anyone,” he says. “I thought, What an incredible opportunity to do the same thing but with people you love. I felt a lot more confident being myself with people I trusted.” Unlike MIC, he adds, he’s not told where to stand, where to look, what to say, or to take his lines over again. And, yes, though technically a Lady of London, Vandelli is in fact a man, the first in any of Bravo’s female-centric ensembles. “It’s quite funny when people come up to you, but they don’t say your name, they say, ‘Lady of London,’ and I’m like, ‘At your service,’” he quips.

The daughter of wealthy restaurateurs, Sitwell’s mother threw her out at 13. After three years of homelessness, she was recruited to model for Vivienne Westwood and ended up marrying a lord. She was introduced to Murdoch by the famous Irish milliner Philip Treacy. “I can’t remember whether he said we were going to be each other’s nemeses or twins, but I got in that car and it was love at first sight,” Sitwell says. Her divorce from Sir George Reresby Sacheverell Sitwell, 8th Baronet, left her titled and penniless, so Sitwell found a manager to try to get her on “telly.” She didn’t think it would be a reality show. What would it be? “I don’t know, a documentary on horseback riding or the Silk Road or something,” she says, her signature raspy laugh sounding like empty Champagne bottles clanking on full ashtrays. When she signed her contract, after much convincing, she watched two episodes of The Kardashians and hated it. The only reality show she watches now is her own.

Murdoch was offered both Ladies of London and Real Housewives of London. (Hayu, the platform where people outside the U.S. watch Bravo shows and other American reality delicacies, licensed the Real Housewives name for its first original series.) “I don’t think I’m tacky enough to be on the Housewives one,” Murdoch says. “I just don’t think I have the tits or the Lycra collection to pull it off.” Beqiri, who is Swedish and Albanian, was already a Housewife on ITV’s The Real Housewives of Cheshire, the U.K.-only series set in the north of England, when she was married to a football — sorry, soccer — star about ten years ago. Kane, the youngest, was the last to sign on, just a few months before filming started, when casting was looking for someone involved in the city’s fashion scene.

Beqiri says she thought, “Maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” when the offer came to her. “Accept a new adventure because it leads you to so many other things in life.”

Kane interjects, “It’s kind of similar to Martha then, really.”

But Sitwell pipes right up, “Oh no, I needed the money.” (Laugh. Champagne bottle. Ashtray.)

“I did, too, to be fair,” single mom Beqiri admits.

Meier, an American with a business teaching etiquette and a husband in finance, is among the half of the cast who didn’t need the cash. She also turned down Real Housewives after catching Bravo’s attention when she lived in New York; it was interested in her for the RHONY reboot. “I said, ‘Well, that’s super-kind, thank you for thinking of me, but I don’t think I’m a Housewife, personally — also I’m pregnant and moving to London,” she says. She got a call later asking if she was still in London and would be interested in a new opportunity. “And I was like, ‘If it’s that Housewives thing, probably not, but thank you again.’” Meier ultimately signed up for Ladies of London with her best friend from the University of Florida, architect Dara Huang, and the first two episodes depict Huang’s shocking rise and fall. The season opens with the cast tittering about rumors that Huang’s a madam, which she and Meier vehemently deny; later, when Huang films with Beqiri and Kane, she talks shit about her supposed best friend Meier, calling her “cringe.” Huang throws the first group dinner of the series and, when confronted with both the rumors and the lying, quits on the spot.

“When we did that dinner, we took hours and hours to film it,” Kane says. “I know that because I was so pregnant. We didn’t get any food until like 11 p.m. We were all dying.”

“And then we all got food poisoning,” Sitwell says.

“Did you?” Beqiri asks.

“Was it the vodka?” Meier adds, dry as a martini.

“Maybe,” Sitwell reconsiders. Laugh. Champagne bottle. Ashtray.

Meier hasn’t spoken to Huang since filming. “I think if she stayed, it would have been a disaster for me,” she says. “I don’t think she’s the kind of person that wanted me to be successful, clearly. I’m so glad she left.” (Beqiri, who loves chaos, is the only one who thinks Huang should have stayed.)

From left: Meier, Margo Stilley, Kimi Murdoch, and Vandelli.
Photo: Nick Wall/Bravo

Huang’s departure left a villain power vacuum that Margo Stilley eagerly filled. An actress best known for her role in 9 Songs, the 2004 Michael Winterbottom film about a couple going to concerts and fucking that featured actual sex on-camera, Stilley came into the series on the recommendation of Sitwell. The pair had been friends for years and Stilley, a South Carolina native, had also turned down Bravo opportunities in the past. Her friend Whitney Sudler-Smith, one of the producers and stars of Southern Charm, tried to get her to join that show’s first season. Years later, while pregnant with her now-2-year-old daughter, Stilley heard a voice while driving that said she was going to appear in a reality show. Call it the universe, call it manifesting, call it pregnancy-induced psychosis, but it came true.

Before Huang’s final episode finished airing, Stilley was tattling on Murdoch’s own shit-talking about Beqiri’s brother’s death (“It’s horrible, but it is what it is,” Murdoch insisted), and the cycle repeated itself — except now Stilley stood her ground. She and Murdoch repeatedly clash over Sitwell, whom both feel protective over, and that rivalry caught Stilley in Vandelli’s crosshairs as well. Vandelli thinks Stilley is nouveau riche; Stilley thinks Vandelli is a bully. Stilley, who says she was having health difficulties during filming, knows she gets the brunt of the conflict. “Everyone else has a little bit of drama and then it pops out, but my drama’s a steady role,” she says from Malibu a few days after the photo shoot. “They pass me around like a little drama bong, like it rips off me.”

There’s a part of Stilley that embraces her villain role. “Usually in life, I’ve got boundaries up. I keep it civil and I’m just chilling, but on the show I was like, You know what? This is an opportunity for me to just be myself. I’m going to say what I think and I’m going to do what I want. And that really pisses everybody off.”

Without saying it, the cast gathered at Sketch seem to agree. When asked who has the most to answer to at the reunion, the English people at tea demure from a direct answer. “Someone who’s not here,” Meier finally says, pointing it at one of two people.

“She’s American,” Sitwell adds, not narrowing it down any further. She won’t call out either of her friends, even though they’re not there. No one wants to spill the tea at this tea party.

The conversation turns lively once more as it moves to the prospect of a second season (bullish) and the hope that no one will change too much from all the newfound attention. Sitwell adores the fame, especially the “500 messages a day I get telling me I’m amazing.” She says she’ll remain mostly herself for season two but come back a “hard-nosed business woman.” It sounds almost Thatcher-esque.