The domestic icon shares all in her new documentary—from jail time to Snoop time. Here are the juiciest bits.
10 Things You Need to Know About the New Martha Stewart Documentary
Published on Oct. 22, 2024
What do you think of Martha Stewart? Sure, the domestic doyenne is the original influencer, and she’s still captivating fans with her expert knowledge of all things good living. And while she’s certainly impressive, she’s also, well, complicated. Unapologetically strict. Controlling. Demanding. These traits, along with that expert knowledge, enabled her to become the first female self-made billionaire in America … only to spectacularly fall from grace.
All sides of the 83-year-old entrepreneur are explored in the brand-new Martha Stewart documentary, officially titled Martha, which premieres on Netflix on Oct. 30. It draws on hundreds of hours of intimate interviews with Stewart and those from her inner circle, along with Stewart’s own archives of diaries, letters and never-seen-before footage. The film is loosely divided into two parts: One takes us through her upbringing, education, marriage, divorce and skyrocketing professional success; the other chronicles the 2004 trial that sent her to prison for 150 days and everything that’s happened to her after that. (Read: We do indeed learn the origins of Stewart’s unexpected bond with one Snoop Dogg).
We got an early peek at the Martha Stewart documentary. Here are the 10 most fascinating takeaways.
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She was heavily influenced by her dad
Born Martha Kostyra, she grew up in Nutley, New Jersey, with five siblings. Her mother, also named Martha, was a teacher and homemaker. But she says she inherited many of her Type A personality traits—and her green thumb—from her salesman dad, Edward. “He made us learn how to garden,” she says. When he lost his job and the family became cash-strapped, the siblings took the newly grown goods and sold them at local markets for money.
Beyond the doc, Stewart has remarked that her dad recognized her enthusiasm and encouraged her by constantly saying, “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
She held a series of interesting jobs before becoming domesticated
Stewart has been working since she was a teenager. At the suggestion of a neighbor, the long-legged blonde started off as a model for brands like Chanel and Clairol and popped up in commercials. By 1968, she was married to Andy Stewart and was a new mom to her only child, Alexa. Next stop: a Wall Street brokerage firm, where she made $225,000 in one year. “It was the first time I learned to behave around billionaires,” she says. But the sexism was rampant. And after the family uprooted to a farmhouse in Westport, Connecticut, in the 1970s, she found her calling as an in-demand caterer for the likes of Paul Newman and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a $1 million enterprise.
She got her big break at a party
As noted in the Martha Stewart documentary, she was catering an event for her husband’s book publishing company when she was “discovered.” A publisher from a rival company was so impressed with Stewart’s talents that he suggested she try her hand at a book. That bright idea resulted in Entertaining, first published in 1982. The glossy 310-page tome encompassed elaborate recipes (for both family dinners and cocktail parties for up to 200 people), tips galore and personal anecdotes with careful instructions on how to make it all look beautiful. Entertaining wasn’t just a popular book—it sold out immediately, and in the decade that followed, it sold more than 500,000 copies.
She cheated on her husband
She was married to publishing executive Andrew Stewart from 1961 to 1990, but many of those years were rocky. Stewart claims that he cheated on her with multiple women and had a longstanding affair with a young staffer who lived on their Connecticut property. In the documentary, she implores, “Young women, listen to my advice: If you’re married and your husband starts to cheat on you, he’s a piece of [trash], and get out of that marriage.” But director R.J. Cutler then chimes in, asking, “Didn’t you have an affair early on?” And though Stewart confirms she had one with “a very attractive Irishman,” she dismisses it as a meaningless fling.
Andrew ultimately asked for a divorce and left her furious and brokenhearted. (Though Cutler talked to her ex, he is not part of the Martha Stewart documentary.)
She became a billionaire by building her namesake brand
With the strong sales of Entertaining, Stewart found herself at the helm of a newly minted media business. Thanks to her savvy and work ethic, she turned that business into an empire. In 1988, she started a partnership with retail giant Kmart, selling bedding, linens, towels, dinnerware and more with her name on it. By 2002, sales of Martha Stewart Everyday products accounted for $1.5 billion of the chain’s $36 billion in revenue. She also wrote more books, launched the hot-selling monthly magazine Martha Stewart Living and hosted a weekly syndicated series spoofed on Saturday Night Live.
In 1999, she decided to take her $200 million–grossing company public and celebrated by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. At its peak, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia had a $1.2 billion value.
She has some choice words about her much-hyped scandal
Stewart’s popularity and reputation plummeted in June 2003 when she faced both criminal and civil charges related to her December 2001 sale of nearly 4,000 shares of stock from the biopharmaceutical company ImClone Systems. (Though her friend was the CEO of the company, Stewart still denies she received any insider information.) A highly publicized trial ensued in early 2004, and Stewart was found guilty on charges that included conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Twenty years later, she’s still incensed about how it all went down: “It was so horrifying to me that I had to go through that to be a trophy for those idiots in the U.S. attorney’s office. Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and put on high.”
She stresses that prison was not easy living
Sentenced to five months in prison (in addition to five months of house arrest), Stewart served her time at a minimum-security federal correctional facility in Alderson, West Virginia. Though it was dubbed in the press as “Camp Cupcake,” she asserts that it was not a cushy facility or an easy stay. For starters, the starchy processed food and coffee were “terrible.” She also had to spend one day in confinement without food and water for touching an officer. (Stewart says in the documentary that she just accidentally brushed up against the officer’s belt chain.) Still, Stewart made friends with her inmates (some of whom talk in the film), helped grow a garden and gave lectures on how to become an entrepreneur. Stewart was released in March 2005.
She hated doing her TV show
In a bid to launch a post-prison comeback, Stewart signed a deal with Survivor super-producer Mark Burnett. Soon, she was hosting The Martha Stewart Show, a daily morning talk show with celebrities like Robin Williams helping her cook on camera. The lively format didn’t match her not-so-sunny personality, and Stewart doesn’t hold back when detailing how much she disliked the experience. In fact, between the “crummy” music and live audience, she snaps, “That was more like prison than being in Alderson.”
The last episode aired in 2012. During that time, she also had to sell her company for parts and took a loss at a $1 billion overall. “My mojo was savaged,” she admits. But not for long!
She owes her friendship with Snoop to Justin Bieber
In 2015, Stewart played against type and participated in the Comedy Central roast of Justin Bieber. By chance, she sat on the dais all night next to Snoop Dogg, whom she knew only casually. Not only did she kill during her set, but she also forged a legit partnership with the weed-smoking L.A. rapper. “He was smoking away blunt after blunt, and I was just getting higher and higher sitting there,” she recalls. “By all this secondhand smoke, we created an idea that maybe we should hang out and talk about things and just find an adventure.”
The two ended up collaborating on projects such as Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party series, commercials and Puppy Bowls. They also recently did segments on NBC for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. As Snoop himself says in the documentary, “She’s one of our greatest teachers. She’s the queen.”
She’s actually fine with not being perfect
Time and time again in the Martha Stewart documentary, friends, colleagues and experts share that she built herself up to be a preposterously faultless superwoman. Stewart even says at the outset, “I am a perfectionist.” But having persevered through a tough upbringing, difficult divorce, jail time and the sale of her company, Stewart admits in the closing moments that she’s come to embrace the flaws. “I’ve learned that as one gets older, imperfections are a little more OK,” she says. “It’s something you can deal with.”
Besides, she still finds purpose in making the world a little prettier: “You see a field, and you can turn that field into a fantastic garden.”
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Sources:
- Time: “Martha Stewart Shares the Most Powerful Words Her Father Ever Said to Her”
- WWD: “How Martha Stewart Went From Chanel Model to Oldest Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue Cover Star at 81”
- CNN: “A look back at ‘Entertaining,’ Martha Stewart’s first book”
- The New York Times: “Martha Stewart and Kmart Hold Fast, for Now”
- People: “Why Did Martha Stewart Go to Prison? A Look Back at Her 2004 Fraud Case”
- People: “Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg’s Friendship Timeline”
