Model? Stockbroker? A crusade against Halloween?? You know the chef -- what about the rest? Keep
watching to see which rival chef Martha Stewart roasted on national TV, and so much more!
Growing up in Nutley, New Jersey in the 1950s,
a young Martha Stewart had aspirations to go to a good college, but needed to find the means.
A natural looker with poise to spare, she began modeling to pay her way through New
York's prestigious Barnard University. Stewart told Today's Jill Martin:
"I was one of six kids. We were taught to work, we were encouraged to
pay our own way, and we all did."
She was far from the average catalog mannequin. In her modeling heyday,
Stewart shot campaigns for Clairol and posed in haute couture for Chanel. She made up to $50
an hour, which was a pretty nice income at the time. And she's been taking care
of business ever since, proudly telling fellow mogul Oprah Winfrey:
"[I relish] a feeling that I can write a check without worrying,
choking, or fretting. And that's how I've always approached my jobs. There had better
be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, because [getting there] is really hard."
A lot of Martha Stewart’s business savvy comes from the seven years she spent as a New
York stockbroker. After marrying husband Andrew Stewart in 1961, she reportedly took advice from
his father and got a job working downtown at the stock market. Unsurprisingly, Stewart was a whiz
with numbers. But as the only woman at her firm in what was still a very male-dominated industry,
she had to fend off plenty of unsavory advances. Stewart told Harper's Bazaar in a recent profile:
"You saw the movie 'Wall Street'? I lived it. I mean, every man on Wall Street was trying
to get you. Every man was trying to touch you in the cab. We had martinis for lunch."
As always, however, Martha kept her eyes on her paper, telling the outlet:
"You had to keep your cool and just do your thing, and brush them away."
Nearly four decades later, a poor stock-trading decision in 2001
led to Martha Stewart's infamous financial scandal, landing her in federal prison.
In 1965, Stewart gave birth to her only child, her daughter Alexis. And while
she's built her empire as an expert of the home, Stewart's own household was surprisingly cold,
unfun, and fraught with tension, according to her kid. In a 2011 book entitled Whateverland:
Learning to Live Here, Alexis Stewart describes a stressed-out childhood
scarred by her mother's lack of caring. She grew up with no Halloween costumes,
no snacks, and the constant pressure of perfectionism, Alexis claimed.
It was dirty laundry for sure, but Martha Stewart, as always, took it in stride, noting that Alexis,
by then a mom herself, had turned out just fine. Stewart remarked on her daytime talk show:
"I must have instilled in her some good habits. She's tall, beautiful, gorgeous and
mother of baby Jude and that's all that counts." In recent years, mother and daughter appear to
have reached a mutual understanding. Speaking to People in 2020, Stewart shared that while
their relationship has always been difficult, she knows Alexis would, quote, "do anything for me."
Disillusioned with the big city, Stewart and her family moved to the Connecticut suburb of
Westport, purchasing a farmhouse complete with its own barn. She had grown tired of Wall Street
but wasn't sure what to do next. Stewart had spent years entertaining clients and used this
experience to transition to a catering business. After placing an ad in a local paper, Stewart then
found herself preparing blindly for a wedding for 300, according to Entrepreneur Magazine.
We all know how that turned out. Stewart ended up launching her first company, the Uncatered Affair,
and setting up a local prepared food shop called the Market Basket. Through contacts, she was
tapped to write magazine columns. Then, in 1982, she released her first cookbook, Entertaining.
Following its release, several critics accused her of lifting her recipes, an allegation that
continued to follow her for years. True to form, Stewart brushed it off, reportedly saying:
"I don't know why, as a cookbook author, I have to be so controversial. I'm writing
beautiful books that bring so much good and enjoyment to people — what's wrong with that?"
While her career flourished, Stewart's personal life soured over the next few years. And in 1987,
she and Andrew split. Far from an amicable separation, it was a tawdry affair. Andrew
Stewart sought a court order preventing his estranged wife from even speaking to him,
People reported. Adding insult to injury, he began seeing her former assistant,
who he ended up marrying in 1993. Martha Stewart did keep his last name, which, by then, had become
an essential part of her image. But everything else about the union, she left in the dust.
Stewart never remarried and has since kept her relationships relatively private. She dated
actor Anthony Hopkins in the 1990's but joked she couldn't get past his frightening portrayal
of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. She moved on to billionaire Charles Simonyi,
her beau for the next 15 years before their reported 2008 breakup. More recently,
she's joined Match.com, but made it clear she's probably too busy to tie the knot again.
Stewart's career ascended quickly, with her first magazine, Martha Stewart Living,
hitting stands in 1990. Two years later, she jumped from the page to the airwaves, launching
her first television show, Martha Stewart Living TV, as a syndicated series. In each episode,
Stewart took viewers through the basics of finer home care – including cooking demonstrations,
decorating tips, and creative entertaining ideas. It solidified her role as America's
domestic connoisseur, a title she says she's never approached lightly. Stewart told Oprah:
"I think baking cookies is equal to Queen Victoria running an empire. There's no
difference in how seriously you take the job, how seriously you approach your whole life."
She amassed a loyal fan base who tuned in regularly for her expertise. Ten years later,
her show was snapped up by the Hallmark Channel,
which blocked off over two hours each weekday for original Martha Stewart programming,
along with daily repeats. Two years after that, however, Hallmark canceled the series,
citing its high production costs. Without missing a beat, Stewart took her show to PBS.
Kylie who? Years before anyone had heard of the Kardashian-Jenner clan,
Martha Stewart made history as America's real first self-made female billionaire. In 1999,
she took the conglomerate she had formed, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, and went public,
instantly tripling her net worth and earning her $1.6 billion with the opening
ring of the stock market bell. Her only regret, she later told Business Insider,
was not taking a minute to go on a well-deserved shopping spree and pick herself up a thing or two.
A year later, however, Stewart did treat herself to a $15.2 million,152-acre home
in Katonah, New York where she now rubs elbows with neighbors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
According to records, the expansive property features several structures where Martha lives,
works, and entertains.
Martha Stewart's world came crashing down when New York state prosecutors learned of
a December 2001 tip she received about the pending approval of a new cancer medication.
Told by the company's founder that the FDA was set to decline the medication's approval,
Stewart allegedly dumped her stock. In the eyes of the law, that's considered insider trading,
a crime that she, her stockbroker, and the medical company's founder were all later charged with.
Still, Stewart expressed doubt a judge would actually throw the book at her.
She thought wrong. Convicted of all four charges, she was sentenced to five months in prison,
followed by five additional months of home confinement. The world was shocked and the
national headlines blared: the celebrated face of American home etiquette was headed to jail.
While also forced to step down from the board of her company,
Stewart solemnly proceeded with her punishment, requesting to begin her
prison sentence immediately in order to, quote, "put this nightmare behind me."
Once done with her prison sentence, Martha Stewart's career was a bit radioactive — and
it took several years for her to get back on her feet. It was Donald Trump, of all people, who
gave her a fresh start, offering her a spinoff of his hit reality competition show, The Apprentice.
The 2005 version — The Apprentice: Martha Stewart — not only put her back in the public eye,
but it also offered a friendly, more accessible version of her old self. Stewart even poked fun at
her time in the slammer, demonstrating some of the prison dishes she whipped up while behind bars.
Stewart wasn't the only person to benefit from the show's success. A then-unknown aspiring
chef named Bethenny Frankel placed second. After being cast on The Real Housewives of New York,
Frankel is now arguably the most successful star the Bravo franchise has ever seen,
reportedly selling her Skinnygirl liquor and food brand for a reported $100 million.
In 2013, the relationship came full circle when it was Stewart's turn to
appear on Frankel's daytime television talk show. Stewart told Frankel:
"You were a pest. She was. Now you can be that. You're the host."
Martha Stewart's cheeky new persona really got people talking at the 2015 Comedy Central Roast
of pop star Justin Bieber. To pretty much everyone's surprise, Stewart more than held
her own. She was, in fact, the unexpected hit of the night. Poking fun at both her
own time in prison and Bieber's own recent run-ins with the police, she dryly told him:
"I've been in lockup and you wouldn't last a week."
Overwhelmingly reviewers loved it. And to everyone's enjoyment, her shade of fellow
celebrities has made headlines ever since. She dismissed Rachael Ray as an entertainer and has
taken several swipes at Gwyneth Paltrow and her lifestyle brand GOOP, calling her a wannabe,
telling her to stick to acting, and giving a thumbs down to her products.
Even when GOOP's vagina-scented candle sold out, Stewart made it clear she was wholly underwhelmed.
"And that's great. I mean, let her do her thing. And, uh, I wouldn't buy that candle."
One celebrity she did it hit off with? None other than the Doggfather.
Stewart and Snoop Dogg struck an unlikely friendship back in 2008, during Snoop's
first appearance on her former daytime talk show. Flattery was traded over the years through events,
interviews, and social media, and in 2016, they finally came together for the VH1 series,
Martha & Snoop's Dinner Party. Called a "national treasure" by Eater, the loosely formatted series
showcased the star duo hosting dinner for various celebrities. Sometimes they'd cook,
sometimes they'd eat. Most of the time, they drank cocktails, got their buzz on, and bantered.
Not only was the show a delight, but the friendship also opened a new revenue stream
for Martha Stewart. Her friend Snoop, after all, a notorious toker, sparked her interest in the
cannabis industry and inspired her new line of CBD products. As for Snoop, he's bragged that
Stewart is tougher than some of the biggest rappers on the street. Apparently unimpressed
with the antics of Tekashi 6ix9ine, who received a shorter prison sentence in return for giving up
information about his co-conspirators, Snoop reminded everyone via Instagram,
"I invite you all to remember Martha Stewart snitched on NOT ONE SOUL during her trial.
Baby Girl kept it 10 toes down and ate that prison sentence by herself like the true baddie she is."
Who needs Tinder when you've got nearly four million followers? And with one
2020 Instagram post, Martha Stewart let everyone know she was truly feeling herself.
Sure, the post talked about her new swimming pool's paint job, but the real message was clear:
Martha Stewart is most definitely a snack. The snap obviously went viral, with fans commenting
that it was Martha's Stewart's hot girl summer, indeed. Stewart herself played coy, claiming
the smoldering selfie had been accidental. Stewart later said on The Drew Barrymore show:
"I was actually trying to take a picture of the beautiful planted pot at the end of my pool,
and I must have hit the reverse button on my camera. And there I am in the picture,
and I snapped it and said, 'boy you look really good!' and that was that."
The pic resulted in no less than 14 marriage proposals, she also shared with E! News. But
as she's made clear, when it comes to settling down, Martha Stewart just ain't got the time.
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