The Martha Stewart Netflix Documentary Serves Up Some Bombshells

Intimate letters she wrote around the time of their separation showcase how heartsick Stewart was. “Dear Andy, I understand you’re craving for sex with others. No one will ever care about you like I do nor will ever love you as much,” she writes in one. “Give me another chance, Andy. I’m so sorry about so much. Why does it have to be too late?”

In another, Stewart writes, “I hope you’re enjoying your freedom and I hope my plane crashes. I’m sitting on a plane right now crying, coughing, feverish, and so miserable. I cannot believe myself. I should be vital, beautiful, sexual and desirable. And here I am, a total wreck. I’m 45 years old. Worried and lonely. Alone. Hopeless. The future is a total blur.”

The couple separated in 1987 and divorced three years later, shortly before Andy married Fairclough, who was 21 years younger than him. They have also since split and Andy married Shyla Nelson Stewart, president and CEO of Fieldstone Publishing, in 2016.

“I thought monogamy was admirable, but it turned out it didn’t save my marriage,” says Stewart, who then asks: “Can we get on to a happier subject?”

Martha says she was a “trophy” for James Comey in a criminal case.

Unfortunately for Stewart, there is little merriment in the next section of the documentary, which delves into the insider-trading scandal that derailed her empire. In 2003, four years after she became the first self-made female billionaire in the US by taking her media company public, Stewart was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements stemming from an interview she did with the FBI. While investigating her friend Samuel Waksal’s company, ImClone, the FBI questioned Stewart about selling her own stocks in the now defunct biopharma company on the same day as Waskal.

As rumors about the circumstances surrounding Stewart’s sale swirled, “I was advised to keep quiet,” she says. “Bad advice.” The following year, Stewart was convicted of obstructing justice related to the probe and sentenced to five months in prison. Following the conviction, her company’s valuation dropped more than 50% and she could no longer serve as CEO. “I had to go through that to be a trophy for these idiots in the US Attorney’s office,” Stewart says in Martha, alleging that the lead prosecutors, including a young James Comey, targeted her as “the first billionaire woman in America.” She adds, “Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high.”