Verbatim 18:8 in the NKJV, including all three of its footnotes.
Quick answer
Gossip is delicious and it does not stay on the surface. The verse explains why the fuel in the previous two verses keeps getting supplied.
Read both lines
The saying is honest about the appeal, which is what makes it land. Tasty trifles concedes that hearing something about somebody is a pleasure, and a warning that pretended otherwise would be useless. Then the second line follows the morsel down. The Hebrew is חַדְרֵי־בָטֶן, rooms of the belly, the same idiom 20:27 used for the interior a person's own lamp searches and 20:30 used for where a consequence reaches.
That is the claim: gossip is not filed as information, it is digested, and it changes how you see the person afterward whether or not you ever verify it. The book thought this worth saying twice, word for word, in two different collections.
Related: Proverbs 18:8 · Proverbs 20:27 · Proverbs 20:19 · Proverbs 11:13
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.