40 Facts About Martha Stewart That Cast Her Life In A Whole New Light

Despite having barely changed over the years, Stewart turned 82 in 2023. You read that right! Martha Helen Kostyra entered the world in August 1941 – yes, really! – as the second of six children to parents of Polish heritage. She’s a Jersey girl, too, having grown up in the township of Nutley not far from Passaic.

Stewart was close to her late mom, who was nicknamed “Big Martha” by her nearest and dearest. In fact, when the businesswoman went to prison in 2004, she had one pressing request: to not be placed in a facility too far away from her then-90-year-old mother. But Stewart’s wish was ultimately rejected, and she served her sentence at the secluded Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia – which, let’s face it, is a few miles from New Jersey.

According to Stewart’s website, her parents were “avid do-it-yourselfers” who passed on their skills to their daughter. The star’s mom and dad taught her to sew, cook and cultivate her own green thumb. And if you’re wondering just how Stewart knows how to perfectly preserve a peach? Well, it’s all down to her grandparents, who showed their grandaughter the ropes when it came to canning.

At the age of just ten, the future lifestyle guru started babysitting for several players of the New York Yankees baseball team. One of those clients was none other than Mickey Mantle! And it seemed that she did a good job for the Commerce Comet, as she also put on birthday parties for his kids, according to Jane Leavy’s book The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood.

Stewart is a statuesque 5’9” tall, which made her a good height to be a model. So, she started striking a pose at just 13, with lucrative jobs for brands such as Chanel, Lifebuoy soap, Clairol and Breck helping her pay for her studies at college. While being interviewed for the 2013 PBS documentary series Makers: Women Who Make America, Stewart explained, “I got enough modeling jobs at $50 an hour, which was a lot of money at that time.”

Stewart initially decided to major in chemistry at Barnard College, but she ultimately changed this to art and history before finally settling for a degree in architectural history. She received a lesson in love at college, too. During her time at Barnard, the star was introduced to her future husband Andrew Stewart, who had studied at the prestigious Yale Law School.

Stewart wed Andrew at the tender age of 19 in July 1961. And while she then took 12 months off from her studies before returning to Barnard, it didn’t seem to unduly affect her grades. In any case, the future TV personality graduated with a double major. Pretty impressive, right?

Revealingly, Stewart has claimed that her career came before maintaining her relationship with Andrew. And in her opinion, this may have led to the breakdown of her marriage. She and Andrew had their only child – daughter Alexis – in 1965 before they went their separate ways 22 years later. Stewart told CNN in 2017, “I had to sacrifice a marriage because of the lure of the great job, the fabulous workplace. But I don’t regret it at all, because what I’ve done is something bigger and better than just one marriage.”

In 1967 the former model took a role as a stockbroker for a firm on Wall Street. Not as strange a career turn as it may seem! Stewart had a natural business head on her shoulders, you see, and annually she made as much as $135,000 – or almost $800,000 in today’s money – during her years in the profession. But the 1973 stock market crash would prompt her to diversify once again.

Stewart’s transition into a domestic goddess wasn’t all smooth sailing. To begin with, it was going well, with the aspiring lifestyle guru setting up a catering firm with pal and fellow model Norma Collier in 1976. The pair later fell out, though, after Collier alleged that Stewart was surreptitiously taking on clients on her own.

The entrepreneur went on to publish several cookery books before launching Martha Stewart Living in 1990. And this proved to be an excellent business move. In the early aughts, the magazine would sell more than two million copies per issue, making it a fantastic money-spinner. Stewart also launched a weekly TV show of the same name, which would run for 11 years until 2004.

The star has won a total of 19 Emmys for her TV shows – including two in 1995 for Best Service Show Host and one for Best Service Show. Stewart scooped further Best Service Show Host Emmys in 1997, 2002 and 2003, and in 2011 she picked up the Lifestyle/Culinary Host gong to boot. We hope she still has enough room on her mantlepiece...

In what had to be a complete honor, Stewart was dubbed “the definitive American woman of our time” by New York magazine in 1995. But that was followed by what some may consider an equally flattering accolade. You see, in 1996 People included the lifestyle mogul within its “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” list. Aptly, she was in her mid-50s at the time.

Proving her financial savvy, the television personality decided that she wanted to control her business ventures under one umbrella. These included all the Martha Stewart TV, magazine and newspaper holdings as well as her merchandising endeavors – which, collected together, were worth a pretty penny. So, in 1997, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) was born. Two years later, the company went public on the stock market, and shares had increased $20 by the end of the first day of trading.

Stewart’s initial public offering saw her net worth rise to eight figures – on paper, anyway. Now, she was a self-made billionaire, making her the first woman to ever achieve this feat in the U.S. And the term “self-made” is an important one here. While many women come into their fortunes by inheriting their money or lucrative divorce settlements, it’s less common for them to become billionaires in their own rights.

Things were soon to fall apart, though. On December 27, 2001, Stewart sold all her nearly 4,000 shares in ImClone Systems. Then, the following day, the company – which manufactured oncology medicines – was knocked back by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when it came to a new remedy called Erbitux. This made Stewart’s move a suspiciously clever one.

By selling her shares the day before the news of the FDA decision broke, Stewart steered clear of losing more than $45,000. But this small saving was to come at an enormous cost for the billionaire. As it turns out, Stewart had been illegally forewarned by her broker that ImClone Systems stock was due to plummet.

As you may imagine, Stewart came heavily under fire in the media following the share sale scandal. But she wasn’t willing to talk about it. When asked about the issue during a cookery segment on CBS, Stewart carried on slicing into a cabbage and merely remarked, “I want to focus on my salad.”

There were still considerable repercussions for Stewart, however. In October 2002 she quit her role on the New York Stock Exchange’s prestigious board. That was a job the disgraced lifestyle queen had held for less than half a year. Then, the following June, she was hit with the serious charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice.

In news that shocked the world, Stewart was ultimately sentenced to serve five months in prison after being convicted of conspiracy, giving false statements to federal investigators and obstruction of an agency proceeding. She was also forced to observe a two-year period of supervised release afterward, spend five months being electronically tagged and hand over a $30,000 fine. Still, that stint behind bars did give her a nifty nickname. Later, the world-famous homemaking guru claimed that in prison she had been known as M.Diddy.

Even after Stewart had done her time, she was still paying the price for her misbehavior. Because of her criminal record, she was denied entry to the U.K. in 2008. In addition, Stewart was ordered to pay an almost $200,000 penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a related civil case against her.

You should know, though, that Stewart was fastidious even after her conviction. While she had until 2:00 p.m. on October 8, 2004, to report to prison, the TV star showed up at approximately 6:15 a.m. that day. Her release, by contrast, came just under five months later at 12:30 a.m.

Even with a spell behind bars to her name, Stewart wasn’t going to give up. In fact, she debuted two new TV series within just a few weeks of her home arrest finally ending. Talk show Martha launched in September 2005, while Celebrity Apprentice: Martha Stewart started a matter of days after that. The latter show wasn’t a hit in the ratings, however, and was subsequently canceled.

Stewart raked in close to $10 million in 2009, even though her company was reportedly $15 million in the red during the same period. The TV star is said to have used Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia cash to pay for – among other things – non-business vacations she’s taken and costs incurred to stay in shape. Nice if you have the money, eh?

Even after serving time in prison, the TV stalwart has seemingly bounced back. She’s just as much a household name as she ever was, and she may have even gained some street cred of sorts by being locked up. There’s been a financial hit, however. In the eight years leading up to 2011, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was only in the black for one, according to New York magazine.

Stewart has owned eight homes all at the same time, and it appears she’s definitely an East Coast kinda gal. According to her website, the entrepreneur had two apartments in Manhattan, another couple of properties in the Hamptons and houses in Connecticut and Bedford, New York. And visitors at Skylands – her Maine dwelling – were apparently subjected to compulsory hikes at 5:00 a.m. Yikes!

Stewart once dated Anthony Hopkins, but the TV icon was apparently put off the actor when she couldn’t get his psychopathic character Hannibal Lecter out of her head. Lecter, of course, is The Silence of the Lambs’ infamous serial-killing cannibal and, according to the American Film Insitute, the greatest villain in Hollywood history. It’ll come as little surprise to hear, then, that Stewart ultimately ended the relationship.

Stewart reportedly had an on-off 15-year romance with the billionaire Charles Simonyi – a leading software expert who had worked for Microsoft. And if having all that money wasn’t enough, Simonyi also became a passenger onboard the spacecraft Soyuz in 2007. Stewart gave the world a glimpse at her beloved’s journey to the stars by broadcasting a clip of the mission on air.

Stewart is a workaholic and insomniac, which means she generally only sleeps four hours a night. Yep, even though the star relaxes in front of the TV well into the night, she’ll still get up ready for work long before most of us have hit snooze on our alarm clocks. In 2008 she explained to WebMD, “It’s an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say [that] sleep can go. It’s not important to me right now.”

It’s fair to say that Stewart has some, well, unique tastes. As a child, one of her favorite snacks was reportedly white onion sandwiches. These days, on the other hand, she’s said to love to snack on buttermilk and pickles – maybe even at the same time. Oh, and she apparently has a penchant for liverwurst, too.

Stewart may be one of the most famous homemakers in the world, but even she leaves some things to the professionals. The star explained on her show Martha, “Japanese is my food of choice when I’m not cooking. I don’t cook it at home, because I feel it’s a special treat for me to go out, sit down and just enjoy the most elegant cuisine in the world.”

In 2019 the icon told Today, “I have hundreds and hundreds of pets – including flocks of chickens, geese… I have 13 peacocks, six horses, I have three donkeys, I have 45 canaries, I have three cats and four dogs at present. And those are the pets I know about.” Apparently, Stewart even speaks to the members of her menagerie in a special, made-up language. Talk about a real-life Dr. Dolittle!

Stewart is said to be a stickler for order, which makes sense if you’ve ever seen her home. And that desire to keep things organized led her to once send an email to her employees banning them from wearing black rubber-soled shoes to the office. The reason was that the footwear left unsightly streaks on the floor. In the message, though, Stewart misspelled “streaks,” writing “steaks” instead. A Freudian slip, perhaps?

You may not have put the two together, but Stewart is a fan of rapper Eminem, according to her website. But perhaps that makes sense, given her close friendship with Snoop Dogg. The odd couple joined forces in 2016 for Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party – a reality series where “half-baked” had more than one meaning. Since then, the friends still collaborate and give the public plenty of opportunities to witness their flair for business and sense of humor.

As a child, Stewart would apparently go to the library with the aim of trying to read everything on the shelves. So, what does the star recommend? Well, as she’s explained on Martha, it’s hard for her to pick a favorite book. Two of her most-loved works, however, are Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

The mogul is so dedicated to keeping order, it’s said, that even her Post-its are color-matched with the rest of her home furnishings. It’s also rumored that Stewart will only have black animals on her farm, as the tones in her country house have to be in black or gray.

Stewart got into hot water with the folks in Katonah, New York, when she tried to trademark the name of the hamlet for a homeware range. Apparently, local business owners were concerned that they’d have to remove “Katonah” from their store signs until the matter was settled.

In 1997 Stewart was handed an Edison Achievement Award in honor of the new paths she’s forged throughout her career. And in 2018 she was given a place in the New Jersey Hall of Fame for her services to enterprise. That’s on top of those 19 Emmys, of course, and her legion of hit TV shows and books. Quite a legacy!

Perhaps hanging around with Snoop Dogg has rubbed off on Stewart, as in 2019 she came on board the Canadian marijuana business Canopy Growth. The star is an adviser to the firm, which in April 2019 was the biggest cannabis company on the planet. Now she’s living the high life in more ways than one...

Martha claims her motto has always been, "When you're through changing, you're through," so at 81, the business mogul changed things up a bit. Appearing on the 2023 cover of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, Martha officially became the oldest woman to hold the coveted position. Still, she didn't stop at the cover; the thirst trap queen, as she has lovingly been dubbed by her Instagram fans, nailed a whole featured spread.