Minor spoilers ahead.
When you think of Martha Stewart, a few things might come to mind: Her 2004 insider trading felony conviction that landed her in jail; her unexpected but now-iconic friendship with Snoop Dogg; and her business acumen and eponymous lifestyle brand that made her a household name.
The new biographical documentary by R.J. Cutler, simply titled Martha, aims to peel back the layers of Stewart’s long and varied life—she’s now 83 and recently posed as the oldest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model—via a linear narrative that begins with her childhood and ends with present-day, covering all of the significant moments in between. Cutler’s film tries to balance both her personal and professional life, but Stewart isn’t always forthcoming about the former; when asked about her feelings post-divorce, she instructs the crew to “take it out of the letters,” referencing the intimate notes she wrote to her husband in the aftermath of their separation in 1987.
As the only talking head that is actually shown in the film (all other commentators are weaved in via voiceover), Stewart’s need for control is on display. She’s the first self-made female billionaire for a reason, but the documentary also has flashes of vulnerability that illuminate her tough childhood, long-held grudges, and heartbreaks. Still, Stewart is clearly uncomfortable talking about her emotions—at one point she flat-out says she “doesn’t care” about feelings. She’d rather learn about what someone is thinking about or doing.
However, her ability to control Cutler’s project ended there—her true feelings about the film were made clear in an interview with The New York Times, during which she launched into “roughly 30 almost uninterrupted minutes of sharp critique,” according to the newspaper.
Below are some of the major takeaways from Martha, the queen of reinvention.
Her father had an outsized impression on her life.
Stewart took after her dad in a lot of ways, including his perfectionism and his love of gardening. “I was the ideal daughter,” she says, explaining that she was entrusted with ironing his linen shirts. “It was very obvious to everybody that I was his favorite.” While Stewart became a gardening aficionado, her siblings who appear in the documentary via voiceover admit that they hate gardening to this day because of their father’s drill sergeant mentality.
According to Stewart, her father, who died in 1979, was a deeply unhappy man due to his lack of professional success and also a bigot. He vehemently opposed her marriage as her future husband was Jewish; she recalls him slapping her on the face when he found out about their engagement.
Stewart says his stubbornness and emotional detachment were traits that she inherited, some of which propelled her career to significant heights.
She didn’t initially intend to work in the lifestyle space.
With an interest in economics, Stewart initially worked on Wall Street through her father-in-law’s connections. She excelled in her stockbroker role and was one of the only women at the firm, but quit after an error cost her clients a lot of money. Stewart also cites burnout for walking away from the profession.
The Stewart family moved to Westport, Connecticut and purchased an old farmhouse, which she credits with helping her become the person she is today. Stewart poured herself into restoring the farmhouse and eventually began a catering business.
Much of Stewart’s success can be attributed to her business acumen, but some of it comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Her husband worked in publishing and during a book launch party, Stewart’s catering and table settings caught the eye of Alan Mirken, the head of Crown Publishing, who offered her a book deal. That was the beginning of Stewart’s lifestyle media empire, which spawned many more books, a television show, and a magazine.
Stewart’s marriage was filled with infidelity.
Stewart’s courtship and eventual marriage to Andrew Stewart started out like a fairytale. They met through her future sister-in-law, a fellow student at Barnard that hand-selected Martha to go on a date with her brother. “By the end of dinner, I was madly in love,” she recalls about their first date. The couple got married not long after in 1961, and took a casual five-month honeymoon in Europe.
It was here that she first strayed in her marriage, kissing a stranger at a cathedral in Florence, though present-day Stewart doesn’t count it as infidelity. To her, the moment was emotionally charged rather than unfaithful.
Whether it was naughty or not, the moment seemed to foreshadow the future of her relationship. Both Martha and Andrew cheated in their marriage, with Andrew’s affair with one of their employees resulting in their divorce (he went on to marry his mistress). In Martha, she expresses her respect for monogamy, revealing that she wouldn’t have broken up her marriage for her affair, though her husband wasn’t on the same page.
Her best friend put the nail in the coffin of her trial.
Mariana Pasternak, whose kids were Stewart’s godchildren, took the stand during Stewart’s insider trading trial and told the judge and jury that her friend had knowingly sold her shares of ImClone stock. The two had vacationed together and Pasternak recalled that Stewart offhandedly said, “Isn’t it nice to have brokers tell you those things.” The statement fueled the government’s case that claimed Stewart had received insider information about the stock, and proved to be a significant piece of evidence that put her in jail.
Pasternak maintains that this was her legal obligation but knew their friendship was over as soon as she said the words in the courtroom. Stewart still maintains her innocence.
She had never seen a Comedy Central roast prior to participating in Justin Bieber’s.
Stewart’s public reinvention began with an appearance on Comedy Central’s Roast of Justin Bieber in 2015—an unconventional place to stage a comeback for someone of her ilk. She was game, but having never seen a roast before, she didn’t realize that she’d also be the butt of many jokes.
Comedians like Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, and her future bestie Snoop Dogg participated in the roast, poking fun at her incarceration. When it was Stewart’s turn, she delivered scathing jokes that shocked and awed the audience. The veteran comics and public alike were impressed by her embrace of the off-color and edgy one-liners that embody the spectacle.
Her set introduced her to a younger generation and her friendship with Snoop Dogg, which blossomed from sitting next to each other for hours during the roast’s taping, has become one of Hollywood’s most beloved pairs. Stewart has capitalized on the new chapter with various ventures with and influenced by Snoop Dogg, including a potluck dinner party, CBD gummies, a cannabis brand, and a podcast.
Despite having “full access” to her archives, Stewart feels Cutler was “a bit lazy” with the cut—especially the second half.
You’d think that a documentary with Stewart at the center would have sign-off from its star, but it sounds like the perfectionist isn’t happy with this version of her life story. In an interview with The New York Times published the morning of the Netflix premiere, she took issue with Cutler’s choice of music, camera angles, and archival footage.
Cutler weaves footage of Stewart tending to her vast garden throughout the film (and even ends on that image), likely to draw back to her father’s influence and to show her as a solitary figure. Stewart hated these moments. “Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those. And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them.”
She wanted rap and hip-hop music, but Cutler’s first cut featured classical music. (According to Stewart, he later added “Beautiful” by Snoop Dogg to the end credits.) Cutler used three camera angles during her interviews, but Stewart insists he chose “the ugliest angle…he would not change that.”
Of course much of the documentary focuses on her trial, sentencing, and jail time—after all, it is one of the most infamous things about her. But in the grand scheme of her life, Stewart feels like it’s “not that important.” She claims the judge fell asleep at the bench before adding, “I considered it a vacation, to tell you the truth.”
