economie

8 of the most surprising revelations from Martha Stewart’s candid new Netflix documentary

October 30, 20240
Photos of Martha Stewart as a child with her parents.

Courtesy of Netflix

Stewart revealed what it was like growing up with six siblings in Nutley, New Jersey. She said her drive for perfectionism came from her father, Edward Kostyra.

“Dad made each of us learn how to garden. He could grow anything,” Stewart says in the documentary. “I was the ideal daughter. I wanted to learn, he had a lot to teach, and I listened.”

“It was very obvious to everybody that I was his favorite,” she added. “He thought I was more like him than the other children.”

But Stewart said her father was also a “dissatisfied, unhappy human being” who would sometimes begin the day with a glass of red wine alongside his coffee. Frank Kostyra, one of Stewart’s brothers, said their father would whip his children with a yardstick or the end of a belt.

Stewart said her father also hit her when she told him that she was engaged to Andrew Stewart.

“I went home and told my dad, and my dad slapped me,” she recalled. “He slapped me hard on my face and said, ‘No, you’re not marrying him. He’s a Jew.'”

“I remember getting that slap,” Stewart added. “I was not at all surprised because he was a bigot and he was impulsive. But I said, ‘I’m going to get married no matter what you think.'”

Stewart kissed a stranger while she was on her honeymoon in Italy.
Stewart was the first self-made woman billionaire in America.

Courtesy of Netflix

After working as a model in her teens and getting her history degree from Barnard College, Stewart set her sights on Wall Street. But in 1968, there were no other women at her firm.

“I had to sort of put my arm out like that,” Stewart says in the documentary. “The stuff that went on in the back seat of the taxis, I’m not even gonna talk about.”

But Stewart said she learned a lot during her stockbroker days, especially how to “behave around billionaires.”

Stewart said she made a quarter of a million dollars a year at her firm. When she started to burn out, she quit Wall Street and moved her family to Turkey Hill Road in Westport, Connecticut.

Her first home renovation at Turkey Hill Road is why Stewart wanted to become a homemaker.
Martha and Andrew Stewart at their home on Turkey Hill Road.

Courtesy of Netflix

Stewart discusses the fallout of her marriage to Andrew at length in “Martha,” saying he repeatedly cheated on her while they were together. They were married from 1961 to 1990.

In the documentary, Stewart said one of her ex-husband’s affairs was with a woman she had hired to do the flower arrangements at Turkey Hill. When the girl lost her apartment, Stewart invited her to move into the barn on their property.

“When I was traveling, Andy started up with her,” Stewart said. “It was like I put out a snack for Andy.”

“Young women, listen to my advice: If you’re married, and you think you’re happily married, and your husband starts to cheat on you, he’s the piece of shit,” she added. “And look at him as a piece of shit and get out of that marriage.”

At this point in the documentary, Cutler interjects to ask Stewart if she’d had an affair early on in their marriage.

“I don’t think Andy ever knew about that,” Stewart says.

“He did say he knew about that,” Cutler tells her. “He said he didn’t stray from the marriage until you told him you had already strayed.”

“Oh, that’s not true, I don’t think,” Stewart replies.

“But what happened, you had an affair?” Cutler asks.

“I had a very brief affair with a very attractive Irishman,” Stewart says. “I would’ve never broken up a marriage for it. It was nothing. It was like the kiss in the cathedral.”

Stewart shared the heartbroken letters she wrote to her husband during their breakup.
Martha Stewart and Charles Simonyi in 2006.

Scott Rudd/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Stewart describes Simonyi as a “total genius” in the documentary, saying they “started to go everywhere together” at the beginning of their courtship.

Everything changed in 2004 when Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators amid the ImClone insider trading scandal. She served five months at the Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia, where she said Simonyi only visited her once.

“I don’t think he liked hanging out with somebody in jail,” Stewart says in the documentary. “He was out on his boat floating around the world. That was distressing to me.”

Stewart said that when she was released in March 2005, Simonyi sent his private plane to pick her up. But he ended their relationship three years later while the couple was on a trip to Iceland.

“We were in bed, and he said, ‘You know Martha, I’m going to get married. I’m going to get married to Lisa.'” Stewart recalled. “I said, ‘Lisa who?’ He hadn’t told me a word.”

“I thought that was the most horrible thing a person could do,” she added. “How can a man who spent 15 years with me just do that?”

Stewart also revealed entries from the diary she kept while in prison.
Martha Stewart with her daughter Alexis upon her release from prison in March 2005.

JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images

Stewart kept a journal while she was in Alderson. On her very first day, she described being strip searched.

“Squat, arms out, cough. Embarrassing,” she writes.

In the following entries, Stewart notes the “unhealthy bed set” in her prison cell, the “very poor quality of food” in the cafeteria, and the lack of fertilizer, pots, or seeds in the greenhouses.

She also revealed one instance in which she was forced to spend a day in solitary confinement without food or water after she brushed an officer’s key chain while complimenting her outfit.

In perhaps the most revealing entry, Stewart discusses her sorrow while serving time.

“I feel very inconsequential today,” she writes. “As if no one would miss me if I never came back to reality.”