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The 9 Most Shocking Revelations in the Martha Stewart Documentary

Martha Stewart has lived so many lives. She was a stockbroker, caterer, author, model, television personality and prisoner. However, there is still a lot you may not know about the brilliant businesswoman and self-made billionaire who has continually reinvented herself.

The new Netflix documentary, Marthaoffers an intimate look into Stewart's life – from her childhood and early career to her trial and comeback. Here are the nine most surprising revelations from the film.

Martha learned to garden because her family was having financial problems.

Martha Stewart became a billionaire in 1999. However, she was the first woman to receive the title homemade She was a billionaire for a reason – she didn't grow up rich. In fact, Stewart learned to garden as a child to help her family put food on the table. According to her brother, they would even trade grain with people for other goods.

“He stood over you like a sergeant,” Martha said of her father. “Nasty, mean. 'You're not doing it right.'”

“He would give us the order: 'Weed the tomatoes.' And if we didn't continue, we would pay the fine,” her brother chimed in. “To this day I despise gardening.”

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Martha was a stockbroker before her media career.

While she is described throughout the documentary as an “original influencer,” Stewart started out as a stockbroker, which should come as no surprise given her financial success and keen business acumen. She ultimately gave up that career after moving to Connecticut. She directed her ambitions towards the catering business, which ultimately sparked her success in the media.

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

The couple's relationship was full of drama and infidelity. Stewart admitted to kissing a stranger during their honeymoon at the cathedral in Florence, Italy. She later had a “brief affair with a very attractive Irishman,” but described it as “nothing.”

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

However, her husband Andy Stewart reportedly had many more affairs. “I don’t know how many girlfriends he had at the time, but I think there were a few,” she said in the documentary. He even got together with one of her co-workers who was living on the grounds of her Connecticut home 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 consider him a piece of shit and get out of there. Get out of this marriage. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't walk away.” The couple eventually divorced after 29 years of marriage.

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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 truly great 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 uncomfortable house and learned to suppress most of my emotions,” she said. The film's narrator adds: “Martha didn't really enjoy her marriage and raising a child.”

But despite the couple's complicated relationship, they remained close over the years. In fact, the two bought a duplex together on the Upper West Side earlier this year.

Her former bosses didn't want Martha Stewart to have her own television show.

Despite the undeniable success of her magazine empire, her bosses at Time Inc. were not interested in Martha putting her name and likeness on television. The publisher reportedly even feared that they wouldn't buy magazines if they had access to Stewart on television.

Of course they were very wrong.

Martha's best friend testified against her in court.

During the most difficult time in Stewart's life, she was betrayed by one of her closest confidants: 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 when I looked into the courtroom, 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 person” when she took the stand. “She was scared, she was being told what to say. That made me very sad.”

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Martha Stewart was dragged into solitary confinement in prison.

While serving her prison sentence for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators, Stewart was thrown into solitary confinement after she allegedly touched an officer. She was reportedly denied food and water all day.

“Today I saw two very well dressed ladies walking and I glanced past them and noticed the beautiful warm morning and how beautiful they looked,” Stewart wrote in a letter from prison. “When I recognized that they were guards from the large silver key chain, I lightly slipped the chain. I was later called in to be told that I must never touch a security guard without expecting a stern reprimand.”

“That 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 US Weekly.

Martha's boyfriend of 15 years told her that he was marrying someone else while they were still together.

Stewart's now ex-boyfriend Charles Simonyi – who was a billionaire himself as the inventor of Microsoft Office – separated from her after 15 years together. The couple were reportedly lying in bed together when he told her that 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 terrible thing a person could do. “How can a man who spent 15 years with me just do that?” she said. “What a stupid thing to do to someone you really care about.”

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Martha Stewart's appearance at Justin Bieber's Comedy Central Roast revived her career.

After prison, Martha Stewart said she lost her “mojo.” But an unlikely TV appearance helped her back: that of Justin Bieber Comedy Central Roast, where she shocked the audience with her jokes.

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

At the roast, Martha also struck up her unlikely friendship with Snoop Dogg, who she sat next to. “She happened to be sitting side by side and my secondhand smoke gave me the idea that maybe we should hang out and talk about things,” the rapper added. This is where the idea for her show came from, Martha and Snoop.

Headshot by Megan Schaltegger

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