The 9 Most Shocking Revelations in the Martha Stewart Documentary

“He stood over you like a sergeant,” Martha said of her father. “But, bad. ‘You’re not doing it right’.”

“He’d give us an order, ‘Hold the tomatoes.’ And if we didn’t follow through, we’d pay the fine,” chimed in her brother. “To this day I despise gardening.”

Martha was a stockbroker before her media career.

While she’s described as the “original influencer” throughout the documentary, Stewart started out as a stockbroker, which should hardly come as a surprise given her financial success and keen business acumen. She ultimately left that career after moving to Connecticut. She redirected her ambitions to the catering business, which would ultimately spark her success in the media.

Martha had a “brief affair”. Her marriage to Andy Stewart was never picture perfect.

The couple’s relationship was filled with drama and infidelity. Stewart admitted to kissing a stranger in the Duomo in Florence, Italy, during her honeymoon. She later had a “brief affair with a very attractive Irish man”, although she called it “nothing”.

“I would never have broken up a marriage for that. It was nothing,” she said. “It was like the kiss in the cathedral.”

But her husband Andy Stewart reportedly had many more affairs. “I don’t know how many girlfriends he had at this time, but I think there were quite a few,” she said in the documentary. He even took up with one of her employees who was living on the grounds of their home in Connecticut at the time.

“Young women, listen to my advice. If you’re married and you think you’re happily married and your husband starts cheating on you, he’s a piece of shit,” she said. “And look at him like crap and get out of it. Get out of that marriage. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t walk away.” The couple ultimately divorced after 29 years of marriage.

Her relationship with her daughter is complex, yet close.

From the beginning, Martha had complex feelings about her role as a mother, telling viewers, “How could I be a really good mother if I didn’t have the training to be a mother?”

Even her daughter, Alexis, admits it was a difficult upbringing. “I grew up in a very unpleasant house and I learned to suppress most of my emotions,” she said. The narrator adds that “Martha didn’t have much joy in her marriage and raising a child.”

Despite the couple’s complicated relationship, however, they have remained close over the years. In fact, the couple bought one Upper West Side duplex together earlier this year.

Her former bosses didn’t want Martha Stewart to have her own TV show.

Despite the indisputable success of her magazine empire, her bosses at Time Inc. was not keen on Martha taking her name and image to TV. In fact, the publisher was reportedly worried that if they had access to Stewart on TV, they wouldn’t buy magazines.

Of course they were very wrong.

Martha’s best friend testified against her in court.

In the most difficult time of Stewart’s life, she was betrayed by one of her closest confidantes: her best friend, Mariana Pasternak, who testified against her.

“I testified truthfully as was my legal obligation,” Pasternak said in the documentary. “That’s why I said those words and I looked into the courtroom and I saw Martha’s eyes. You know, that cold icy look in her eyes. I knew our friendship was over.”

However, Martha argued that her old friend was “a damaged human being” when she took the stand. “She was scared, she was told what to say. It made me very sad.”

Martha Stewart was dragged into solitary confinement in prison.

While serving his sentence for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators, Stewart was thrown into solitary confinement after allegedly touching an officer. She was reportedly denied food and water throughout the day.

“Today I saw two very well dressed ladies walking and I blew past them and remarked on the beautiful warm morning and how lovely they looked,” Stewart wrote in a letter from prison. “Realizing from the large silver key ring that they were guards, I lightly brushed the chain. Later I was called in to be told never ever to touch a guard without expecting a severe reprimand.”

“This was Camp Cupcake, remember? That was the nickname. Camp Cupcake. It wasn’t a cupcake,” she added.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has disputed Martha’s claims of being placed in solitary confinement, according to US Weekly.

Martha’s boyfriend of 15 years told her he married someone else while they were still together.

Stewart’s now-ex-boyfriend Charles Simonyi – who was a billionaire in his own right as the creator of Microsoft Office – broke up with her after 15 years together. The couple were allegedly in bed when he told her he planned to marry Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire, and therefore could no longer have contact with her.

“I thought it was the most horrible thing a human being could do. How can a man who has spent 15 years with me just do that?” she said. “What a stupid thing to do to someone you actually cared about.”

Martha Stewart’s appearance on Justin Bieber Comedy Central roast revived her career.

After prison, Martha Stewart said she lost her “mojo.” However, an unlikely TV appearance helped her get it back: Justin Bieber’s Comedy Central roast where she shocked the audience with her jokes.

“It was a masterpiece. It was brilliant in so many ways because it was Martha reclaiming her identity and it really made waves.” Los Angeles Times said reporter Meg James.

It was at the roast where Martha also formed her unlikely friendship with Snoop Dogg, who she sat next to. “She just happened to be sitting side by side and my passive smoking created an idea that maybe we should hang out and talk about things,” the rapper added. That spawned the idea for their show, Martha & Snoop.

Megan Schaltegger is a NYC-based writer. She loves strong coffee, eating her way through the Manhattan food scene and her dog, Murray. She promises not to talk about herself in the third person IRL.