# Don't Mess with the Big Dog: Martha Stewart

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 27 Nov 2025, 1 h 08 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/d0fd1683-7279-4d24-8b87-b3a1010a6362/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

Martha Stewart is more than a food and entertaining icon; she's a brand. Literally. But a brand can't lie to the feds and a brand can't go to jail. Martha Stewart the human, however, could and did just that. But you can't keep a tough gal down. Martha made a comeback and then some. And that's a good thing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Zion, Elizabeth Dutton zelling.
[0:07] Speaker 3: Good to see you.
[0:08] Speaker 2: How are you? Oh, I'm doing okay. How about you?
[0:11] Speaker 3: I'm feeling good, nice, doing.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Well, getting ready for the holidays.
[0:14] Speaker 3: I am dam How about you?
[0:16] Speaker 2: Oh I'm super excited.
[0:18] Speaker 3: Are do you celebrate Toyota thun?
[0:20] Speaker 2: Oh? My god, Happy Hondred days to you?
[0:22] Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much.
[0:23] Speaker 2: I mean, do you remember when it was, you know,
[0:26] Speaker 2: before it was woke to say these things or anti woke.
[0:28] Speaker 2: I don't even know which way that goes.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Look, all I want is for everyone to have a
[0:31] Speaker 3: December to remember.
[0:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't even celebrate a wintertime sales event without
[0:36] Speaker 2: some people trying to like poopoo it well and.
[0:38] Speaker 3: You say something like doorbusters and everyone gets upset with
[0:42] Speaker 3: you like it's bad word.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Have a Lexus December to remember, right?
[0:46] Speaker 3: You know, Bogo, you know it's ridiculous.
[0:51] Speaker 2: I do, Elizabeth. In fact, you know, as I mentioned
[0:54] Speaker 2: the holidays, I've been trying to do something that's very
[0:57] Speaker 2: difficult and ridiculously difficult in fact, which is Christmas shop.
[1:01] Speaker 3: For you for me?
[1:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I just sent you what I was looking
[1:04] Speaker 2: at online to get and.
[1:06] Speaker 3: It text mess you know.
[1:08] Speaker 2: It's also ridiculous. There is a distinct lack of law
[1:12] Speaker 2: and order fan art on Betsy.
[1:14] Speaker 3: How much do I need it?
[1:16] Speaker 2: So that's the best I came up with.
[1:17] Speaker 3: Can I have that for Christmas? Santa?
[1:20] Speaker 2: You are interested in that? Okay? So that is a
[1:23] Speaker 2: fan art watercolor of Jerry Orbach.
[1:25] Speaker 3: I mean, are you kidding?
[1:27] Speaker 2: But I didn't have any options like that. One's really good.
[1:29] Speaker 2: Like I'm really I'm a fan of the artist and
[1:32] Speaker 2: what they did with that. But I was looking. I
[1:35] Speaker 2: was expecting to be a bunch like all kinds of
[1:37] Speaker 2: watercolors and a crylics to choose from. But no, I'm like,
[1:40] Speaker 2: war is my fan art.
[1:42] Speaker 3: That I'm obsessed with? Bad fan art?
[1:44] Speaker 2: Yes?
[1:45] Speaker 3: And like I think you get the most quality ones
[1:47] Speaker 3: with either Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio.
[1:50] Speaker 2: Why is that?
[1:51] Speaker 3: I don't know, But there's are the ones.
[1:52] Speaker 2: That just noticed.
[1:53] Speaker 3: A lot of people want to drawm and nobody can.
[1:56] Speaker 2: A lot of drawing for memory.
[1:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's incredible the fan art I love that. I'm
[2:02] Speaker 3: the worst to buy gifts.
[2:03] Speaker 2: For ridiculously, hard ridiculously because if I.
[2:05] Speaker 3: Want something, I just go get it. Yeah, I don't,
[2:07] Speaker 3: and I don't like asking people for things, and I
[2:12] Speaker 3: don't like people giving me things out of obligation, Like
[2:15] Speaker 3: so just we'll get you something, and then it's just
[2:17] Speaker 3: something where I'm like, what do I do with this?
[2:20] Speaker 3: I have too much stuff already, so.
[2:21] Speaker 2: There'll be no surprise this year. That's what you're kidding.
[2:24] Speaker 3: I love it. I love not. I got to get
[2:26] Speaker 3: you something, don't.
[2:28] Speaker 2: I've got way too much stuff and I sell most
[2:30] Speaker 2: of it.
[2:30] Speaker 3: Oh see now, and then you accuse me.
[2:32] Speaker 2: No, I'm kidding entirely. Please get me something. If you don't,
[2:35] Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to be have of our
[2:36] Speaker 2: friendship on my.
[2:38] Speaker 3: List, I've got you Dave Admiral iHeart.
[2:41] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he.
[2:42] Speaker 3: Is horrible to buy for, very difficult because you have
[2:44] Speaker 3: to spend like a minimum of fifteen thousand dollars.
[2:47] Speaker 2: It's got one of everything, so I.
[2:48] Speaker 3: Just steal stuff. I don't have that.
[2:50] Speaker 2: Kind of send him an AI gift.
[2:52] Speaker 3: Oh you know what, I think? I've or a cameo.
[2:56] Speaker 2: Cameo?
[2:56] Speaker 3: Do you think are the boy we love to hate?
[3:00] Speaker 3: George Santos is still doing cameos?
[3:03] Speaker 2: I sincerely dot it, but then again he may needed
[3:05] Speaker 2: still to pay for back as legal costs. I have
[3:07] Speaker 2: no idea how his finances are life or just like
[3:09] Speaker 2: get on his feet money.
[3:10] Speaker 3: Maybe everybody gets a cameo of some sort this Christmas.
[3:13] Speaker 2: Please pick somebody else from me?
[3:17] Speaker 3: Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
[3:19] Speaker 2: Oh? Please?
[3:20] Speaker 3: All I can tell you is it's a good thing.
[3:24] Speaker 3: M This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and
[3:48] Speaker 3: outrageous capers. His cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder
[3:53] Speaker 3: free and one ridiculous.
[3:56] Speaker 2: Damn right.
[3:59] Speaker 3: You know how I have that list of celebrities that
[4:01] Speaker 3: I'd like to be friends with.
[4:03] Speaker 2: I was unaware of that, but I like knowing that
[4:06] Speaker 2: about you.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Think about how I think I've mentioned you.
[4:09] Speaker 2: Do you have an even unofficial and I like to
[4:11] Speaker 2: think scroll No.
[4:13] Speaker 3: I don't have it written down wall. You know Courtney Love,
[4:18] Speaker 3: she made a list of what she wanted in life
[4:19] Speaker 3: when she was like pre fame, and one of the
[4:22] Speaker 3: things on the list was to be friends with Michael Stipe.
[4:25] Speaker 3: And then she made that come true.
[4:27] Speaker 2: You can see what you can be.
[4:28] Speaker 3: They're good buddies. I love that. So if you could
[4:31] Speaker 3: be pals with four celebrities. Who would you pick?
[4:34] Speaker 2: Living or dead? Sar, I don't mind being friends with
[4:39] Speaker 2: dead people. Yeah, living, Okay, so I'm not adding to
[4:42] Speaker 2: my ghost friend ghost friendship. Okay, four people, four that's
[4:47] Speaker 2: that's difficult, all right. So I'm gonna go with uh
[4:53] Speaker 2: Jack White from the White Stripes. I think I pick him.
[4:57] Speaker 2: Willie Nelson. I already interviewed him, so that was fine.
[4:59] Speaker 2: I think we would hit it off. We had a
[5:01] Speaker 2: good time, good chat on the bus. I'm probably gonna
[5:04] Speaker 2: go with I mean, this is difficult because like some
[5:09] Speaker 2: of my favorites have passed, so hmmm, Eric Abadoo, because
[5:16] Speaker 2: I think just because I want to add a little
[5:17] Speaker 2: spice to my life, and she would be like she
[5:19] Speaker 2: had she has like new theories for me to consider
[5:23] Speaker 2: things I never ever thought of. I like that and
[5:25] Speaker 2: like novelty of like especially well thought out stuff.
[5:28] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:28] Speaker 2: And then probably Fiona Apple. I really like her and
[5:32] Speaker 2: the court watching. She and I could court watch and
[5:34] Speaker 2: talk about it. That's a good one. She's legit, you know.
[5:37] Speaker 2: So there you go off off the top of the dome.
[5:39] Speaker 2: That's my list all musicians.
[5:40] Speaker 3: That's interesting.
[5:41] Speaker 2: It is interesting because like you asked me and I
[5:43] Speaker 2: just started thinking of people who were like make me happy,
[5:45] Speaker 2: whereas some challenge obviously Erica Bete would challenge my belief systems.
[5:50] Speaker 2: But they're like, you know, I there are some living
[5:52] Speaker 2: scientists who I would like to hang out with. There
[5:54] Speaker 2: are some great noble states women and men who'd like
[5:57] Speaker 2: to hang out with. But you asked me like who
[5:59] Speaker 2: I want his friends? I don't know if I want them,
[6:02] Speaker 2: like having to call me for the holidays, and I'm like, no,
[6:04] Speaker 2: I can't come over.
[6:06] Speaker 3: Meet for lunch type thing, exactly. I My list is
[6:09] Speaker 3: like ever shifting, and I.
[6:10] Speaker 2: Think Terrence Taule, the mathematician, it would be really just
[6:13] Speaker 2: he's a cool guy. But I don't know what kind
[6:14] Speaker 2: of friend he'd be. I mean, like, is he gonna
[6:16] Speaker 2: want to like chat, you'd be like sending me one
[6:18] Speaker 2: word answers in text I don't need exactly.
[6:20] Speaker 3: He's a little busy. So my likes my list, You're
[6:23] Speaker 3: mine shifts all the time. And Eric Abodu is on
[6:27] Speaker 3: my list because I think she'd be so interesting but
[6:29] Speaker 3: also really funny.
[6:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's totally funny and smart and you have similar
[6:34] Speaker 2: senses of humor.
[6:36] Speaker 3: Right now, Seth Rogan I think would be cool.
[6:39] Speaker 2: That's a good one.
[6:40] Speaker 3: He's got like an interesting aesthetic and and it'd be
[6:44] Speaker 3: fun just to hang out with art historian Ben door Grosner.
[6:48] Speaker 2: Oh my god, you love him.
[6:50] Speaker 3: He's one of my favorites.
[6:52] Speaker 2: You mentioned him the other day and he entered my dream.
[6:54] Speaker 2: I was like, Bendor, what are you doing here?
[6:56] Speaker 3: Here's the thing, like the world is too much for me,
[7:00] Speaker 3: and when I need to escape it and go to
[7:02] Speaker 3: a really calm place that is not centered in where
[7:07] Speaker 3: we are right now. Bendor has these art shows like
[7:11] Speaker 3: on you know, British television.
[7:14] Speaker 2: Style.
[7:15] Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you know, and he investigates old paintings
[7:18] Speaker 3: and restores them and then like does like you know,
[7:21] Speaker 3: figures out the mysteries of them and who's actually painted.
[7:25] Speaker 3: And he's really he's smart and interesting. And then Ina Garten.
[7:30] Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, I love Flower Sister.
[7:33] Speaker 3: She read her own audiobook and you can kind of
[7:35] Speaker 3: hear when she's getting tired at the end of chapters
[7:38] Speaker 3: and she begins to elide more and more words like
[7:41] Speaker 3: I do.
[7:42] Speaker 2: Just like.
[7:43] Speaker 3: She lives the greatest life. Her husband adores her and
[7:47] Speaker 3: she him. They have a partnership. She has a Paris apartment.
[7:51] Speaker 3: She's had a successful business hit cooking and entertainment shows.
[7:56] Speaker 3: I love her cookbooks. But I learned something in her memoir.
[8:00] Speaker 3: She had a brush with the Big Dog, which one.
[8:04] Speaker 3: They operate in the same sphere, but in very different ways,
[8:08] Speaker 3: she and Tyler Perry. And I'm going to talk about
[8:10] Speaker 3: that big dog today.
[8:12] Speaker 2: Oh big dog, the big dog going to walk us all.
[8:14] Speaker 3: Sometimes we're sympathetic to the crimeers on here, sure, other
[8:18] Speaker 3: times were not. I believe in punching up, not down. Yeah,
[8:24] Speaker 3: And so when criminals go after everyday people, it really
[8:27] Speaker 3: chaps my cheeks, Saren. But when criminals go after fat cats,
[8:32] Speaker 3: I love it. And what about rich on rich crime?
[8:37] Speaker 3: And what of rich people who are being made an
[8:39] Speaker 3: example when their compatriots do even more brazen crime?
[8:43] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the fairness scales.
[8:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, I got one for you today, The Big Dog.
[8:47] Speaker 3: Martha Stewart.
[8:48] Speaker 2: Oh why we never come? Would you consider.
[8:55] Speaker 3: I get down with Martha?
[8:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, girl, Martha, finally get pay or we back.
[9:00] Speaker 3: My mom is kind of like foul mouthed Martha Stewart.
[9:04] Speaker 3: But we used to have this running joke is that
[9:07] Speaker 3: she would come up with some sort of project or
[9:09] Speaker 3: make something you know, food wise or decorative things, and
[9:14] Speaker 3: then guaranteed like the next issue of Martha Stewart Living
[9:18] Speaker 3: would have it like on the cover. She was you know,
[9:21] Speaker 3: Martha was Yeah, Martha was tapping the phones finger on
[9:25] Speaker 3: the pulse together exactly exactly. There was a time in
[9:30] Speaker 3: her early days when her whole thing was like making
[9:32] Speaker 3: things look elegant and gracious without spending a lot of money.
[9:35] Speaker 2: Yes, I kind of remember this.
[9:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of like entertaining hacks. Of course
[9:40] Speaker 3: that morphed over the years, but she started out more
[9:42] Speaker 3: attached to her humble roots. She was born Martha Helen
[9:47] Speaker 3: Costira in nineteen forty one in Jersey City, New Jersey.
[9:51] Speaker 3: She was the second of six kids. Her parents, Edward
[9:55] Speaker 3: and Martha, were school teachers.
[9:57] Speaker 2: Because she's a bridge and tunnel girl.
[9:58] Speaker 3: She is. Her dad later became a pharmaceutical salesman. It
[10:01] Speaker 3: was a good Polish American family, I was wondering, Yeah, yeah,
[10:05] Speaker 3: So the family they moved when Martha was young to Nutley,
[10:08] Speaker 3: New Jersey, and that's where she was raised and from
[10:11] Speaker 3: a young age she learned domestic skills, cooking, sewing like
[10:16] Speaker 3: canning and preserving under the tutelage of her mother and
[10:20] Speaker 3: also when they would go to a buffalo to visit
[10:22] Speaker 3: her grandparents and so and like her dad loved gardening,
[10:27] Speaker 3: and so his passion and his vision guided her in
[10:30] Speaker 3: that through her life and her career in high school,
[10:34] Speaker 3: strong student, smart, smart gal, she got a partial scholarship
[10:38] Speaker 3: to Barnard College, and to help pay tuition, she did
[10:41] Speaker 3: commercial modeling work. So she like print and commercials and
[10:44] Speaker 3: she even did one for like Chanel. Yeah, so at
[10:48] Speaker 3: Barnard she wanted to study chemistry, but eventually she switched
[10:53] Speaker 3: majors to art, European history and architectural history, and those
[10:58] Speaker 3: are super fascinating, that are like tempting, but unless you're
[11:02] Speaker 3: from a rich family that has all sorts of connections
[11:05] Speaker 3: these days, they'll be super tough to get a career in.
[11:08] Speaker 2: But honestly, you know, she's a little bit older than
[11:10] Speaker 2: this question would really apply. But it seems like most
[11:13] Speaker 2: people do not have a job in their major like this.
[11:16] Speaker 2: It's kind of like no longer the case. So people
[11:18] Speaker 2: don't have specialized things, right obviously, saving the sciences, I guess,
[11:22] Speaker 2: and some things are you know, mathematician, but a lot
[11:24] Speaker 2: of people that get a degree and they end up
[11:26] Speaker 2: doing a lot of doing a lot.
[11:27] Speaker 3: Of other things. Yeah, and so I mean you could
[11:28] Speaker 3: see where that could you know, would apply or as
[11:31] Speaker 3: they used to say in the old insulting days, she
[11:34] Speaker 3: was getting an mrs degree.
[11:36] Speaker 2: Oh busy. She was looking for her.
[11:38] Speaker 3: Husband, and she found one. While she was in college.
[11:41] Speaker 3: She met Andrew Stewart, a Yale law student. They married
[11:45] Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty one, and she paused her studies, but
[11:48] Speaker 3: then she later went back and finished and got her degree,
[11:51] Speaker 3: and they had one child, Alexis Stuart, and she was
[11:54] Speaker 3: born in nineteen sixty five. But she wasn't at Barnard
[11:58] Speaker 3: for an mrs. I mean it's women's college, but they
[12:01] Speaker 3: aren't sequestered anyway. After college, she worked as a stockbroker,
[12:05] Speaker 3: beginning in nineteen sixty seven. That's pretty big impressive. So yeah,
[12:08] Speaker 3: she's not getting a job within her major. The stock
[12:12] Speaker 3: market downturn in nineteen seventy three, though, influenced her decision
[12:17] Speaker 3: to pivot away.
[12:20] Speaker 2: Stagflation.
[12:22] Speaker 3: This isn't working for me, So she and her husband
[12:24] Speaker 3: they moved to Westport, Connecticut, and they bought and started
[12:28] Speaker 3: to restore this historic farmhouse called Turkey Hill, and they'd
[12:32] Speaker 3: heard about it that it was on sale. It had
[12:34] Speaker 3: around two acres. It was advertised as having quote deep
[12:38] Speaker 3: loamy soil, huge, huge trees, but like not a whole
[12:42] Speaker 3: lot else, like no, not really out buildings, no driveway,
[12:45] Speaker 3: no barn, no vistas. So they closed on the property
[12:49] Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy one for forty six thousand, seven hundred
[12:52] Speaker 3: and fifty dollars. Now that's almost three hundred and seventy
[12:56] Speaker 3: four thousand dollars today, But real estate inflation is different
[13:00] Speaker 3: from standard.
[13:01] Speaker 2: In calculation, I imagine.
[13:04] Speaker 3: So anyway, the housing market everywhere is basically obscene, That's
[13:07] Speaker 3: what I'm trying to say. So Turkey Hill, Turkey Hill
[13:12] Speaker 3: was originally built in eighteen oh five, and it had
[13:15] Speaker 3: served as an onion farm and area. Yeah, and then
[13:21] Speaker 3: it was rented out for for years and years, and
[13:23] Speaker 3: then they bought it. And she described the house as
[13:25] Speaker 3: having quote good bones, like really nice windows and wide
[13:29] Speaker 3: plank floors, seven fireplaces, but it was totally neglected.
[13:34] Speaker 2: That sounds like it's pretty big, yeah, less like one
[13:38] Speaker 2: in every single room.
[13:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, when they bought it, there were no usable bathrooms.
[13:43] Speaker 3: The kitchen did and work basement was all damp. Oh yeah,
[13:48] Speaker 3: So she and her husband, they did most of the
[13:50] Speaker 3: work themselves. In the early years, they got a lot
[13:53] Speaker 3: of antiques and you know, tried to keep it period appropriate.
[13:58] Speaker 2: And that sort of stuff.
[13:59] Speaker 3: So we're talking colonial, yeah and so, and don't forget
[14:02] Speaker 3: she studied like architectural history. So she wrote that the
[14:07] Speaker 3: experience quote gave her an appreciation of the old and antique.
[14:11] Speaker 3: The materials and methods used in our house's construction had
[14:14] Speaker 3: withstood the ravages of time better than any new house
[14:17] Speaker 3: ever would point good point. So the property and the
[14:21] Speaker 3: restoration process that became kind of like this show piece
[14:25] Speaker 3: for her tastes and her style. In nineteen seventy five,
[14:30] Speaker 3: they bought the two acre parcel next door. So now
[14:33] Speaker 3: they've got four acres, they've got this house. They're just
[14:35] Speaker 3: like fixing up, fixing up. They did all this like
[14:38] Speaker 3: excavation and kind of sculpted the land so they had
[14:41] Speaker 3: vistas now, like beautiful vistas.
[14:43] Speaker 2: Of the car.
[14:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, basically, and they built a barn, a chicken coop,
[14:49] Speaker 3: a garden shed like a garage, a free standing garage,
[14:53] Speaker 3: and then they put in an orchard, a vegetable garden,
[14:55] Speaker 3: a cutting garden, a greenhouse. The chicken coop, by the way,
[14:59] Speaker 3: she ca called La Pelais des poule the Palace of Chicken.
[15:04] Speaker 3: So they put in like stone walls out on the
[15:07] Speaker 3: property and Trellis's yeah, yeah, and so it was just
[15:12] Speaker 3: it was really really beautiful. And so by the mid
[15:16] Speaker 3: seventies she starts really leaning into like domestic and entertaining work.
[15:20] Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy six, she launched a catering business and
[15:24] Speaker 3: she ran it out of the newly refurbished basement at
[15:27] Speaker 3: Turkey Hill. Yeah. So Martha described Turkey Hill as, quote
[15:32] Speaker 3: my original farmhouse and my first laboratory. The home and
[15:36] Speaker 3: gardens look amazing. It taught us, it nurtured us, it
[15:39] Speaker 3: fed us. I would not be who I am today
[15:42] Speaker 3: without the vast knowledge I gained there. So that basement
[15:46] Speaker 3: catering company took off. Quote, in only ten years, her
[15:50] Speaker 3: basement business had become a million dollar enterprise. She's raking
[15:53] Speaker 3: it in. So she's got all these corporate clients, all
[15:56] Speaker 3: these socialites. She had this real like flare for presentation
[16:00] Speaker 3: and focus on seasonal menus, attention to detail. She's just
[16:05] Speaker 3: like growing, growing, growing the business yeah, and that catering
[16:09] Speaker 3: business took her into contact with all these affluent people
[16:13] Speaker 3: and the publishing world. So she catered a book release
[16:17] Speaker 3: party for her husband's business, and the head of Crown
[16:21] Speaker 3: Publishing noticed her and the catering, and that led to
[16:24] Speaker 3: her first cookbook deal.
[16:26] Speaker 2: He's like, do you want to do a cookbook?
[16:27] Speaker 3: This is incredible, This is incredible. So she writes this
[16:30] Speaker 3: book Entertaining that came out in nineteen eighty two, and
[16:33] Speaker 3: that took directly from like all of her catering experience.
[16:36] Speaker 3: So she had menus, recipes, party designs, and then it
[16:39] Speaker 3: also launched like her whole media lifestyle empire because it
[16:44] Speaker 3: was more than just a cookbook. There were like three
[16:46] Speaker 3: hundred recipes, hundreds of full color photographs and then it
[16:50] Speaker 3: but she kind of revolutionized the way that people entertain.
[16:53] Speaker 2: Okay, so it became like an aspirational touchdown.
[16:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, and showing like how this is how you make
[16:57] Speaker 3: a beautiful table scape with not so much. So she
[17:00] Speaker 3: got this business chugging along. She's focusing on high end
[17:04] Speaker 3: entertaining catering for rich people in like the New York
[17:07] Speaker 3: Connecticut corridor. Now she's got a book, develops her esthetic,
[17:12] Speaker 3: and so she then is basically creating a brand. That
[17:16] Speaker 3: book Entertaining was immediately seen as iconic. Bonapetite notes it
[17:21] Speaker 3: was a quote catalog of her catering feats and it
[17:25] Speaker 3: remains influential. So throughout the eighties she released additional lifestyle
[17:29] Speaker 3: and cookbooks. She worked as food and entertaining editor and
[17:33] Speaker 3: columnist for House Beautiful other magazines, and then so everyone's
[17:36] Speaker 3: just kind of seeing her as like this authority in
[17:39] Speaker 3: the domestic arts.
[17:40] Speaker 2: I Got you.
[17:41] Speaker 3: In July of nineteen eighty six, Martha signed a contract
[17:45] Speaker 3: with Kmart.
[17:45] Speaker 2: Did not see that coming, No, it was a real
[17:47] Speaker 2: coup though.
[17:48] Speaker 3: Kmart introduced a Martha Stewart line of entertainment and lifestyle
[17:52] Speaker 3: products and they put her name on stuff sold at
[17:55] Speaker 3: a discount chain, and so that is like it went
[17:59] Speaker 3: counter to what people thought was be aspirational, but it
[18:02] Speaker 3: really is bringing it to the masses, and it was
[18:05] Speaker 3: like they people say that was probably one of her
[18:07] Speaker 3: smartest decisions.
[18:08] Speaker 2: Really.
[18:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, So they have this massive advertising and catalog distribution.
[18:14] Speaker 3: They put her picture and her name in like millions
[18:18] Speaker 3: of households overnight. So suddenly she's accessible and she's not
[18:21] Speaker 3: just for the fancy set. In fact, she wants everyone
[18:24] Speaker 3: to be able to be part of the fancy set.
[18:26] Speaker 2: So she's like becoming the Jordan of entertaining, where she
[18:29] Speaker 2: does one thing nobody else has done the same, and
[18:31] Speaker 2: all of a sudden, everyone's.
[18:32] Speaker 3: Like, oh, think of this exactly exactly she goes to
[18:36] Speaker 3: the masses. Right, So, at first Camart was just selling
[18:39] Speaker 3: soft home goods that means like towels and bedding, but
[18:42] Speaker 3: then they expand into like bath fixtures, paint, window treatments,
[18:47] Speaker 3: garden stuff, and so this licensing endorsement model that she's
[18:52] Speaker 3: this like taste maker for affordable home products becomes the
[18:56] Speaker 3: core pillar of what is called her omnimedia strategy.
[19:00] Speaker 2: Ah.
[19:00] Speaker 3: So, meanwhile, her marriage falls apart. She gets divorced in
[19:04] Speaker 3: nineteen ninety. But that same year, Time incorporateds new unit.
[19:09] Speaker 3: Time Publishing Ventures tested Martha's idea for a magazine centered
[19:14] Speaker 3: on her homemaking and entertaining philosophy. So the first test
[19:18] Speaker 3: slash preview issue of Martha Stewart Living came out in
[19:23] Speaker 3: late nineteen ninety so a winter holiday issue. So the
[19:27] Speaker 3: strong public response. Time Incorporated sees it and they're like,
[19:31] Speaker 3: you know what, we're going to do a bunch of
[19:33] Speaker 3: easy year like this. This isn't just going to be
[19:35] Speaker 3: a one off, and people are eating it up. So
[19:38] Speaker 3: then they went quarterly, then they shifted to monthly by
[19:41] Speaker 3: the mid nineties. That's Martha Stewart living.
[19:43] Speaker 2: Okay, So now you're catching up to where I know
[19:45] Speaker 2: her as an experience.
[19:46] Speaker 3: Right, and she's the editor in chief. She's like the
[19:49] Speaker 3: on page personality model. Yeah, always the cover model.
[19:52] Speaker 2: She she taught to do that right percent.
[19:55] Speaker 3: And she'd like blend her image and her voice with
[19:58] Speaker 3: like service journalism about cooking and decorating gardening crafts. And
[20:03] Speaker 3: it's about that time that she developed her catchphrase, it's
[20:07] Speaker 3: a good thing, all right.
[20:10] Speaker 2: I remember that.
[20:10] Speaker 3: I like Ina Garten's catchphrase. How easy is that? Anyway?
[20:17] Speaker 2: Martha.
[20:17] Speaker 3: So nineteen ninety four, the company launched Martha Stewart Weddings
[20:22] Speaker 3: as an annual special issue, and they made that quarterly
[20:25] Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety nine. She knew the money was in
[20:28] Speaker 3: the wedding industrial complex. In nineteen ninety three, dock Broker
[20:33] Speaker 3: Mind Yeah Group w Production signed with Martha to produce
[20:37] Speaker 3: a weekly, half hour syndicated television show called Martha Stewart Living,
[20:42] Speaker 3: and it was going to cross promote the magazine and
[20:44] Speaker 3: all her other stuff. So it expanded to week days
[20:47] Speaker 3: in ninety seven and then became an hour long daily
[20:51] Speaker 3: format in nineteen ninety nine with a shorter weekend version.
[20:55] Speaker 3: She's just all over the airways.
[20:56] Speaker 2: That's what I really remember it coming out here.
[20:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And it was like it was a relatively
[21:01] Speaker 3: novel thing, this kind of magazine TV synergy model. They
[21:06] Speaker 3: promoted the magazine kmart products ad buyers could reach audiences
[21:11] Speaker 3: across TV in print in like one Martha brand. She
[21:15] Speaker 3: wanted more control and she wanted the upside from this
[21:19] Speaker 3: growing portfolio of media.
[21:22] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[21:23] Speaker 3: So her contract with Time gave her national exposure, but
[21:26] Speaker 3: it wasn't really lucrative for her personally. So in nineteen
[21:30] Speaker 3: ninety seven, she bought back the rights to Martha Stewart
[21:33] Speaker 3: Living magazine from Time. Warner consolidated her ventures so books, magazines,
[21:39] Speaker 3: TV merchandising into one company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia MSLO.
[21:46] Speaker 3: Let's take a break here. When we come back, we're
[21:48] Speaker 3: going to dive into Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. It's a
[21:51] Speaker 3: good thing. Ad breaks, How easy is that.
[22:15] Speaker 2: Dude. I'm loving this Martha Stewart thing because it's making me.
[22:17] Speaker 2: I have a friend, Chelsea Fagan. She's got a new
[22:19] Speaker 2: book out called Happing People Over and it's basically a
[22:22] Speaker 2: very Martha Stewart inspired thing, and she's doing basically it's
[22:27] Speaker 2: like a you know, elder millennial take on the Martha
[22:29] Speaker 2: Stewart brand if you will. Yeah, and this is reminding him.
[22:32] Speaker 2: I'm like, dude, I didn't even realize that she's been
[22:35] Speaker 2: following this pattern for a while. But Martha Stewart is
[22:37] Speaker 2: a hell of a trailblazer. I mean, if you got
[22:39] Speaker 2: Oprah and my friend Chelsea Fagan both following you, you
[22:42] Speaker 2: got something strong going on. It's multi generational, it's multicultural.
[22:45] Speaker 2: But she's just like everyone's like that is like, you know,
[22:48] Speaker 2: it's like not like oh, Moses on the mountaintop, but
[22:51] Speaker 2: like she's getting people a path.
[22:53] Speaker 3: To follow, oh completely completely, And you'll see how that
[22:56] Speaker 3: rings out. So Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was structured around
[23:02] Speaker 3: all of these various business segments. So you got publishing
[23:05] Speaker 3: and that's Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings, all of
[23:09] Speaker 3: her various books, special issues that would come out, like
[23:13] Speaker 3: her Halloween edition was always a big deal. Decorations, yeah,
[23:19] Speaker 3: newspaper columns so yeah, and there'd be like a holiday
[23:21] Speaker 3: cooking one. Then there was broadcasting, and that's so we
[23:26] Speaker 3: have the syndicated Martha Stewart Living TV show plus all
[23:28] Speaker 3: these radio segments. Then we get internet direct commerce, so
[23:33] Speaker 3: that's Marthastewart dot Com, the Martha by Mail catalog. Those
[23:37] Speaker 3: both came out in the late nineties as like direct
[23:39] Speaker 3: to consumers. Yeah. And then lastly we have the merchandising,
[23:43] Speaker 3: so you have the Kmart Martha Stewart.
[23:45] Speaker 2: Every Day line, like Martha Stewart branded cookie roller.
[23:48] Speaker 3: Yeah. And then she just continues to get all these
[23:50] Speaker 3: retail partnerships with all these groups. So this integrated model,
[23:55] Speaker 3: so it was content driving product sales and vice versa
[23:59] Speaker 3: was central to this business proposition. And Harvard Business School
[24:04] Speaker 3: did case studies on this.
[24:05] Speaker 2: I bet they did just.
[24:06] Speaker 3: That it's like this sweet spot perfect method.
[24:10] Speaker 2: She's really kind of brilliant. The more you're reminding me,
[24:12] Speaker 2: I didn't realize like one, just the steps, but also
[24:14] Speaker 2: the spread the scope.
[24:17] Speaker 3: Well, and you think too that she comes from like
[24:19] Speaker 3: this humble beginning. She is savvy. She is savvy, and so.
[24:23] Speaker 2: She she also knows both the upside of like oh,
[24:26] Speaker 2: quaint colonial living, but also Jersey City.
[24:29] Speaker 3: She knows both inherently exactly. So MSLO was a beast,
[24:34] Speaker 3: and that beast went public on the New York Stock
[24:37] Speaker 3: Exchange on October nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine. So the IPO
[24:41] Speaker 3: was priced at eighteen dollars a share, but the stock
[24:43] Speaker 3: quickly traded up to around thirty eight dollars, tripling basically
[24:48] Speaker 3: the issue price. In today, the company's post IPO valuation
[24:53] Speaker 3: was reported at approximately one point eight to two billion,
[24:58] Speaker 3: and because Martha retained like six sixty percent of the shares,
[25:01] Speaker 3: she became, on paper, the first self made female billionaire
[25:05] Speaker 3: in the United States.
[25:07] Speaker 2: Wow. And you don't normally hear me say anything wow
[25:09] Speaker 2: about a billionaire, but yeah, wow, wow. I bet you
[25:12] Speaker 2: made a lot or bought a lot of boats for
[25:14] Speaker 2: a lot of.
[25:14] Speaker 3: Stockbrokers, And yes, you will find out. You'd think that
[25:18] Speaker 3: the merchandising would be the driving force beneath her wealth,
[25:23] Speaker 3: but no. According to the company's nineteen ninety nine annual report,
[25:27] Speaker 3: publishing was the largest segment.
[25:29] Speaker 2: That is surprising yet.
[25:30] Speaker 3: Generated around one hundred and forty five million dollars and
[25:32] Speaker 3: accounted for sixty three percent of total revenue.
[25:35] Speaker 2: That's very surprising. Back in publishing made money apparently.
[25:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, do you remember magazines?
[25:40] Speaker 2: I loved them, Elizabeth, Oh my, I'm sad that they're gone. Largely.
[25:44] Speaker 3: I worked at one Jones I subscribed. I used to
[25:48] Speaker 3: subscribe to.
[25:49] Speaker 2: So many two subscriptions.
[25:51] Speaker 3: I think I would pore over them. I went to
[25:53] Speaker 3: newsstands to check out new ones.
[25:55] Speaker 2: I love buying them from newstands. Then you see international
[25:58] Speaker 2: ones you don't even know. You just buy. Could you
[25:59] Speaker 2: like to Pictures?
[26:00] Speaker 4: Yes?
[26:00] Speaker 3: And I never flew without buying a couple of magazines
[26:03] Speaker 3: at the airport. So like, I still get some magazines
[26:07] Speaker 3: I get like Sunset and Bone Appetite and like Cooks Illustrated.
[26:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, I get like New Scientists, Rolling Stone.
[26:12] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I missed like Spin used to be so good.
[26:17] Speaker 3: I'm mourn. I mourn magazines back to Martha.
[26:21] Speaker 2: So.
[26:21] Speaker 3: By the early two thousands, mslo's revenues were in the
[26:24] Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with external analyzes sighting
[26:28] Speaker 3: around three hundred million in revenue. By two thousand and one.
[26:32] Speaker 3: What's that today? Today, Elizabeth nearly five hundred and fifty
[26:35] Speaker 3: million dollars.
[26:36] Speaker 2: I'll take it.
[26:37] Speaker 3: Big dog. Martha is the big dog. And you know
[26:41] Speaker 3: she had all these these TV shows. And that's where
[26:44] Speaker 3: Aina intersected. Okay, she originally was going to bring Aina
[26:48] Speaker 3: into the fold, but Aina liked it a little bit
[26:52] Speaker 3: more casual.
[26:53] Speaker 2: Was just about to say, was it a fashion conflict
[26:55] Speaker 2: where she's like, could you get dressed up? I'm not
[26:57] Speaker 2: giving up my linens.
[26:58] Speaker 3: No, no, no, it wasn't a fashion thing at all.
[27:00] Speaker 3: It was like Martha had a very strict kind of juggernaut,
[27:04] Speaker 3: like there's a reason why she has built this success.
[27:07] Speaker 3: It's very structure.
[27:08] Speaker 2: You have to subsume your thing to her thing in
[27:10] Speaker 2: a sense, like do it her way, even though and
[27:13] Speaker 2: if you still do your thing.
[27:14] Speaker 3: I watched AA like it's a little message. Well, think
[27:18] Speaker 3: about Julia Child used to drop stuff is more like that,
[27:23] Speaker 3: and she also likes to jug up store bought stuff.
[27:26] Speaker 2: And Martha is very like but not delivery in terms
[27:29] Speaker 2: of like how it looks.
[27:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it just wasn't a good match.
[27:33] Speaker 2: I could see that a good match too. Many like
[27:36] Speaker 2: tomato stands exactly.
[27:38] Speaker 3: So soon though the MSLO stocks struggled, you know, the
[27:43] Speaker 3: the revenues weren't two thousand and one revenues weren't going
[27:46] Speaker 3: to bleed into two thousand and two. There was that
[27:48] Speaker 3: nine to eleven slump that the economy face, and that
[27:51] Speaker 3: early dot com crash exactly. You have all those So
[27:55] Speaker 3: these market conditions, these external pressures are all mounting. Martha
[28:00] Speaker 3: kept majority voting control ninety six percent through a dual
[28:05] Speaker 3: class share structure, and so she had like dominant influence
[28:09] Speaker 3: over direction of the whole thing. She expanded into new
[28:13] Speaker 3: product categories, so like not just home decor, but at
[28:16] Speaker 3: home furnishings, furniture, wallpaper, flooring. She had a wine brand,
[28:22] Speaker 3: Martha Stewart Vintage, which was a partnership with Gallo.
[28:26] Speaker 2: Did not see that she always surprises her brand gave
[28:33] Speaker 2: you if you spotted me seventeen guests. I would no.
[28:36] Speaker 3: No. Her brand licensing model licensed the Martha Stewart name
[28:40] Speaker 3: to third parties for product lines, so it would like
[28:43] Speaker 3: scale revenue, but they didn't always own manufacturing. That's a
[28:47] Speaker 3: little dicey.
[28:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a risk. Yeah, so your name on something,
[28:50] Speaker 2: the quality suffers right right.
[28:52] Speaker 3: So here we have Martha top of the world raking
[28:56] Speaker 3: it in. Enter Sam Waxaw.
[28:59] Speaker 2: Okay, should I know that name?
[29:01] Speaker 3: Uh? No, not necessarily. He was born in nineteen forty
[29:04] Speaker 3: seven in Paris to a Jewish couple who were Holocaust survivors,
[29:08] Speaker 3: and the family later immigrated to the United States. He
[29:10] Speaker 3: got his bachelor's in nineteen sixty nine and then a
[29:13] Speaker 3: PhD in immunobiology in nineteen seventy four from Ohio State.
[29:19] Speaker 3: He did his doctoral studies and then he worked in
[29:22] Speaker 3: these research positions like National Cancer Institute, Stanford Mount Sinai
[29:27] Speaker 3: in immunology and molecular biology. Okay, great who cares? In
[29:32] Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, Waxaw founded m Clone Systems. Originally it
[29:37] Speaker 3: was like this startup focused on immunology, DNA cloning, medical
[29:42] Speaker 3: information systems, but they had this aim of developing biologic medicines,
[29:48] Speaker 3: particularly for oncology, and so under Waxall's leadership, m Clone
[29:53] Speaker 3: partnered with major pharmaceutical firms and developed the monoclonal antibody
[29:59] Speaker 3: drug candidate erbitux for cancer treatment. At its peak, m
[30:06] Speaker 3: Clone looked like this rising star in biotech, and Waxaw
[30:10] Speaker 3: he cultivated this lavish personal lifestyle. So we had art
[30:14] Speaker 3: collections and he was traveling in all these social circles,
[30:18] Speaker 3: well known figure in the industry. Okay, great, who cares.
[30:22] Speaker 3: What's this got to do with Martha? Bring back to
[30:25] Speaker 3: m Clone's future. Hinged on FDA approval of erbitux, and
[30:31] Speaker 3: in late two thousand and one, m Clone submitted a
[30:35] Speaker 3: biologics license Application BLA to the Food and Drug Administration.
[30:40] Speaker 3: The market knew that an FDA decision was coming an
[30:43] Speaker 3: in Clone stock, like the price reflected all these high
[30:47] Speaker 3: expectations that people had.
[30:48] Speaker 2: Of course, it is just going to be it's swelling ony. Yeah.
[30:51] Speaker 3: On the evening of December twenty sixth, two thousand and one,
[30:55] Speaker 3: the FDA told m Clone that it would issue a
[30:58] Speaker 3: refusal to RTF letter, meaning it would not even accept
[31:03] Speaker 3: their application for review.
[31:05] Speaker 2: WHOA, why wow, I don't know.
[31:07] Speaker 3: It's devastating news that had not been made public yet.
[31:11] Speaker 3: So waxall he hears about this impending RTF, he tells
[31:16] Speaker 3: his family members, and then he tries to sell his
[31:18] Speaker 3: own in Clone stock before the bad news hits the market.
[31:23] Speaker 3: That's what we call insider trader.
[31:25] Speaker 2: That's deep insider trading. You're trying to sell your own shares,
[31:28] Speaker 2: that is your family.
[31:28] Speaker 3: Really, So his family dumped over ten million dollars in
[31:32] Speaker 3: in Clone stock between December twenty seventh and twenty eighth,
[31:37] Speaker 3: two thousand and one.
[31:38] Speaker 2: What's fast.
[31:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, Waxall himself tried to sell about five million, but
[31:43] Speaker 3: it got blocked by brokers.
[31:44] Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I mean, you're going to start
[31:46] Speaker 2: the market's going to notice this, even if it's the holidays,
[31:48] Speaker 2: the market's going to notice that much.
[31:49] Speaker 3: Movie totally. Martha Stewart owned three nine hundred and twenty
[31:54] Speaker 3: eight shares of m Clone through her personal account at
[31:57] Speaker 3: Mery Lynch and Waxaw was a quote close friend of Stuart,
[32:02] Speaker 3: and Martha had invested in it as like this gesture
[32:05] Speaker 3: of support for her friend. So like she, she and
[32:08] Speaker 3: Waxall they moved in the same elite social circles in
[32:11] Speaker 3: New York appreciate the thing. And creepily enough, Waxall dated
[32:16] Speaker 3: Martha's daughter Alexis for several years prior to all this.
[32:19] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay.
[32:21] Speaker 2: So Marylynd she would have been his step his mother
[32:25] Speaker 2: in law.
[32:25] Speaker 3: Yeah okay, yeah, So Martha's broker was this guy Peter Bakanovich,
[32:32] Speaker 3: and his assistant was Douglas Fanuel. They knew all this,
[32:36] Speaker 3: They know everything that's going down. So early on December
[32:40] Speaker 3: twenty seventh, two thousand and one, the morning after he
[32:43] Speaker 3: gets that FDA.
[32:44] Speaker 2: Tip, Yeah, well, his family selling off stock as fast
[32:46] Speaker 2: as you can.
[32:47] Speaker 3: Waxall and his daughter are telling Mary Lynch sell everything
[32:50] Speaker 3: we have. Fanoel dealing with multiple urgent cell orders from
[32:55] Speaker 3: the whole Waxaw family. He calls his boss back in Novich,
[33:00] Speaker 3: who's on vacation in Florida, to report, like all these
[33:04] Speaker 3: like everyone's trying to sell Mclone. Why do you think
[33:06] Speaker 3: that is? And so, according to the SEC's complaint. In
[33:10] Speaker 3: later testimony, Bakanovich told Finul to call Martha and tell
[33:15] Speaker 3: her that the wax Saws were selling or trying to
[33:18] Speaker 3: sell all their in Clone shares at Merrill Lynch.
[33:21] Speaker 2: Like.
[33:21] Speaker 3: So he's like, give Martha heads up, this is happening, Okay.
[33:24] Speaker 3: Fanul does that, tells Martha that Sam Waxaw and his
[33:28] Speaker 3: daughter dumping their in Clone stock. Martha hears this, she says,
[33:32] Speaker 3: sell all my stuff. If they're selling it, I want
[33:36] Speaker 3: all three nine hundred twenty eight shares December twenty seventh,
[33:40] Speaker 3: two thousand and one. December twenty eighth, after the market closed,
[33:44] Speaker 3: m Clone publicly announced that refusal to file decision for herbitux.
[33:49] Speaker 3: By the closing of trading on December thirty.
[33:52] Speaker 2: First, okay, the first date is open. Yeah.
[33:55] Speaker 3: M clone stock price had dropped about sixteen percent, down
[33:58] Speaker 3: to around forty six dollars a shit. So Martha sold
[34:01] Speaker 3: at fifty eight dollars a share with proceeds of about
[34:05] Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars, and so she
[34:08] Speaker 3: got to avoid losses of about forty five thousand when
[34:11] Speaker 3: the stock later fell. In the grand scheme of things,
[34:14] Speaker 3: for Martha, that's not a whole lot.
[34:16] Speaker 2: That's not even a drop.
[34:17] Speaker 3: No, for most of us, that would be huge, But
[34:19] Speaker 3: Martha is a billionaire.
[34:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, what does she care? So I said, it's not
[34:22] Speaker 2: even a drop. You'd have to put a few of
[34:24] Speaker 2: those together, drup.
[34:25] Speaker 3: Yes. So the initial focus of regulators in early two
[34:29] Speaker 3: thousand and two was Sam Waxall and his family and
[34:32] Speaker 3: the SEC and the US Attorney's office. They opened this
[34:34] Speaker 3: investigation into the heavy insider selling an m Clone Just
[34:39] Speaker 3: before the announcement the investigation into wax Saw's tips and
[34:43] Speaker 3: trades led regulators to examine all unusual M Clone sales,
[34:47] Speaker 3: including those of other Merrill Lynch clients like Martha Stewart.
[34:51] Speaker 3: So Merrill Lynch's compliance department reviewed all the in Clone
[34:56] Speaker 3: trades and they noticed that Martha, this high profile client,
[34:59] Speaker 3: had done all her shares the same day that Waxall's
[35:02] Speaker 3: family did. Compliance staff questioned the broker about these trades,
[35:08] Speaker 3: and his initial explanation was that, well, you know, Martha
[35:11] Speaker 3: has a standing order to sell if M Clone falls
[35:14] Speaker 3: below sixty. So Fanil he went along.
[35:18] Speaker 2: There was a verbal order. We have no paper records
[35:21] Speaker 2: of it.
[35:22] Speaker 3: Fanila goes along with the whole sixty stop loss story
[35:25] Speaker 3: when he's first questioned by Merrill Lynch and the regulators,
[35:29] Speaker 3: but then he later pleaded guilty tolling to investigators and
[35:32] Speaker 3: agreed to cooperate with the government. And once he was cooperating,
[35:35] Speaker 3: he gave a totally different account. He said Bakanovich had
[35:39] Speaker 3: told him to tip Martha that Waxal and his family
[35:42] Speaker 3: selling the shares. He testified there was no pre existing
[35:46] Speaker 3: sixty dollars sell order and that that was concocted after
[35:49] Speaker 3: the facts cover, so investigators they gathered all this documentary evidence.
[35:55] Speaker 3: They subpoenaed Martha's phone and email records as well as
[35:59] Speaker 3: Merrill Lynch records to reconstruct all of her communications around
[36:03] Speaker 3: this trade. And then there was the quote worksheet. So
[36:07] Speaker 3: Bakanovich had a printed worksheet that listed Martha's holdings dated
[36:13] Speaker 3: December twenty first, two thousand and one.
[36:15] Speaker 2: Okay, almost week prior.
[36:18] Speaker 3: So at the time there was no handwritten note about
[36:20] Speaker 3: the decision to sell in Clone at sixty and according
[36:24] Speaker 3: to the superseding indictment, a note about sixty dollars was
[36:27] Speaker 3: allegedly added after the trade, and so suspicion is raised
[36:31] Speaker 3: that it's fabricated. Correct news accounts said that Finul left
[36:36] Speaker 3: Martha a message saying, Peter Bakanovich thinks in Clone is
[36:40] Speaker 3: going to start trading downward. And then prosecutors said that
[36:44] Speaker 3: Martha later tried to alter or erase evidence of the call,
[36:48] Speaker 3: and so they're like, that's obstruction. She knew what she
[36:51] Speaker 3: was doing. So all of this, the testimony, the worksheet,
[36:54] Speaker 3: the phone records, they the federal government has this narrative
[36:58] Speaker 3: that Martha and are broke her lied to cover up
[37:01] Speaker 3: an improper tip. June fourth, two thousand and three, a
[37:04] Speaker 3: federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted Martha Stewart and Peter
[37:08] Speaker 3: Bakanovich on nine criminal counts.
[37:11] Speaker 2: Nine they squeezed nine out of.
[37:13] Speaker 3: This conspiracy, obstruction of justice, security frauds, making false statements,
[37:18] Speaker 3: bunch of others. The government said Martha sold her in
[37:21] Speaker 3: clone stock based on the tip and then lied to
[37:24] Speaker 3: the FBI and the SEC. And we know the same
[37:31] Speaker 3: day the SEC filed a civil complaint and said that
[37:34] Speaker 3: Martha and Bakanovich committed securities fraud by engaging in illegal
[37:38] Speaker 3: insider trading and then lying to regulators. Criminal trial that
[37:42] Speaker 3: began January of two thousand and four in the Southern
[37:44] Speaker 3: District of New York, there was this judge, Miriam Goldman
[37:49] Speaker 3: Cedar Bamby. That's right. The prosecution's core story was about
[37:55] Speaker 3: this conspiracy between Martha and her broker, Douglas Finul star witness.
[38:00] Speaker 3: He testifies that you know everything that had been laid out.
[38:05] Speaker 3: He said that he told Martha exactly what was going down,
[38:09] Speaker 3: and she was like, sell it. And we know that
[38:12] Speaker 3: Martha and Bakanovich both told investigators that they had previously
[38:16] Speaker 3: agreed to sell if it fell below sixty. Government, you know,
[38:21] Speaker 3: shows that that's totally false. February twenty seventh, two thousand
[38:24] Speaker 3: and four, Judge Cedarbaum dismissed the main securities fraud count
[38:29] Speaker 3: saying that no reasonable jury could find beyond a reasonable
[38:32] Speaker 3: doubt that Martha lied for the purpose of manipulating the
[38:35] Speaker 3: stock price of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
[38:38] Speaker 2: Oh, I can see that, Yeah, reasonable right.
[38:42] Speaker 3: March fifth, two thousand and four, after three days of deliberations,
[38:45] Speaker 3: the jury found Martha Stewart guilty on four counts conspiracy,
[38:49] Speaker 3: obstruction of justice, and then two counts of making false
[38:52] Speaker 3: statements to federal investigators. Line to the FBI is something
[38:55] Speaker 3: you never ever do. Importantly, she was not convicted of
[39:00] Speaker 3: insider trading itself, so her you know that that.
[39:03] Speaker 2: She was clear on basically busted for the cover up.
[39:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, completely busted for the cover.
[39:08] Speaker 2: Up every time. Evidence all abounds.
[39:13] Speaker 3: Yeah. In July sixteenth, two thousand and four, Martha and
[39:17] Speaker 3: Bakanovich were each sentenced to five months in prison, five
[39:21] Speaker 3: months of home confinement, two years probation, and then Martha
[39:25] Speaker 3: got a thirty thousand dollars fine and Bakanovic got four thousand,
[39:29] Speaker 3: So I have a bone to pick about that. If
[39:31] Speaker 3: the broker kicked it all off, Yeah, how is he
[39:34] Speaker 3: paying a larger fund?
[39:35] Speaker 2: It does seem disproportionate in terms of justice anyway.
[39:38] Speaker 3: So in connection with that scandal, Martha resigned as CEO
[39:42] Speaker 3: and chair of MSLO on the day that she was indicted,
[39:46] Speaker 3: and then she later resigned from its board as well
[39:49] Speaker 3: as from outside boards like the New York Stock Exchange.
[39:52] Speaker 3: Her TV show, Martha Stewart Living was pulled from a
[39:55] Speaker 3: bunch of Cbsupan affiliates and then went on hiatus. Let's
[40:00] Speaker 3: take a break. We know she's going inside. She's going
[40:03] Speaker 3: to do some time. Let's have one last ad break
[40:06] Speaker 3: before we go inside with her. Zeron Elizabeth, it's a
[40:31] Speaker 3: good thing.
[40:32] Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about having your own media empire
[40:34] Speaker 2: based on your lifestyle brand?
[40:36] Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, it'd be great.
[40:39] Speaker 2: I think you could do pretty well. But you're honestly
[40:41] Speaker 2: you ever thought of that?
[40:43] Speaker 3: Eron lifestime?
[40:44] Speaker 2: My lifestyle brand is already covered by a number of
[40:46] Speaker 2: motorcycles and surfboard companies. They have it done on Instagram
[40:50] Speaker 2: to like a whole thing, an aesthetic that's easily replicated.
[40:53] Speaker 3: You could be, you could be I lost my.
[40:56] Speaker 2: Moment unless we added like black cowboys to make it unique.
[40:59] Speaker 2: It's something they they don't have. They're like, well, we
[41:01] Speaker 2: had never thought about making it black and western. That's
[41:03] Speaker 2: about the only thing I got at this point. And
[41:06] Speaker 2: that's just a tough cell. You know. Putting surfing, motorcycling,
[41:09] Speaker 2: and black cowboys together as an esthetic.
[41:10] Speaker 3: I think that's it. I think that's what the people
[41:13] Speaker 3: want anyway.
[41:13] Speaker 2: But what about you. You actually could do this, but
[41:16] Speaker 2: the gardening, the cooking, and the entertaining.
[41:18] Speaker 3: Getting like easily frazzled.
[41:20] Speaker 2: Getting easily frazzled coming it, I think, so.
[41:23] Speaker 3: Yelling at dogs while you're trying to do stuff.
[41:26] Speaker 2: Yes, like how to entertain when dogs were at your feet?
[41:29] Speaker 3: Maybe maybe we'll think about that. So Martha, she went
[41:33] Speaker 3: to trial. She got convicted, so we know that, we
[41:37] Speaker 3: know that happened. She had to walk away from the
[41:39] Speaker 3: leadership at MSLO and she had to do time. And
[41:42] Speaker 3: this was such a huge story at the time. I
[41:45] Speaker 3: remember this, it was like it was unbelievable. You have
[41:48] Speaker 3: this iconic domestic powerhouse media personality is going to prison.
[41:54] Speaker 3: So outside the courthouse following her senses the.
[41:56] Speaker 2: Nights like the nighttime talk show out on Oh.
[42:00] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they went nuts. Martha told the press quote,
[42:04] Speaker 3: I'll be back, I'll be back. I'm used to all
[42:07] Speaker 3: kinds of hard work, as you know, and I'm not afraid.
[42:10] Speaker 3: I'm not afraid whatsoever.
[42:12] Speaker 2: Good for her.
[42:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, So a lot of people noted at the time
[42:15] Speaker 3: that there were plenty of examples of folks who did
[42:17] Speaker 3: exactly what she did and didn't get busted. Oh yeah,
[42:21] Speaker 3: And there seemed to be a public split on Martha.
[42:23] Speaker 3: So either people were glad to see her taken down
[42:26] Speaker 3: a notch or they felt that she was being targeted
[42:28] Speaker 3: for being a successful woman.
[42:30] Speaker 2: Do you remember at the time you felt.
[42:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought she was being targeted for.
[42:35] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[42:36] Speaker 3: I mean I think like it you see, like when
[42:39] Speaker 3: you have like an absolute like business tycoon. You know,
[42:44] Speaker 3: Martha was portrayed as being very cold and harsh, and
[42:50] Speaker 3: that's seen as a negative, whereas like you know, male
[42:54] Speaker 3: business tycoons, when you have that kind of cutthroat, driven, harsh,
[42:58] Speaker 3: they're driven. Yeah, and so it's like like, you know,
[43:00] Speaker 3: those same kind of qualities don't translate and she, you know,
[43:04] Speaker 3: it was kind of diminished all the time of being
[43:07] Speaker 3: just she you know, she makes pretty things on TV,
[43:09] Speaker 3: but she was this incredible business person.
[43:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I didn't know she was a stockbroker. I
[43:14] Speaker 2: knew about the model part which they pushed, they did
[43:16] Speaker 2: not really plus the stockbroker part.
[43:18] Speaker 3: I learned that from you and so she. You know.
[43:21] Speaker 3: I just remember thinking at the time, like I just
[43:23] Speaker 3: felt it was kind of unfair. But at the same time,
[43:25] Speaker 3: it also is like rich people problems.
[43:27] Speaker 2: That's what I was curiously, would your punk rock show up?
[43:31] Speaker 2: It seems like rich people problem, most.
[43:32] Speaker 3: People problems, and especially like we keep saying that for
[43:35] Speaker 3: her avoiding a forty five thousand dollars loss, like come on, anyway.
[43:40] Speaker 2: Does almost look cheap like she's trying to do what
[43:42] Speaker 2: I mean, Like that also doesn't add exactly exactly.
[43:46] Speaker 3: So October eighth, two thousand and four, Martha reported to
[43:50] Speaker 3: the federal prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia. And this
[43:54] Speaker 3: place had the nickname Camp Cupcake because it was a
[43:57] Speaker 3: minimum security women's prison.
[43:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been low that is like when you hear
[44:01] Speaker 2: a camp that's I guess the softest the lowest security prisons.
[44:05] Speaker 3: Still prison is still so on her first day, she
[44:08] Speaker 3: had the customary strip search and they made her squat
[44:11] Speaker 3: with her arms out and cough.
[44:13] Speaker 2: There you go, still like this.
[44:15] Speaker 3: Is humiliating completely, yeah, and so she missed her life out.
[44:19] Speaker 2: So that's what they do in a women's facility is
[44:22] Speaker 2: squat and cough to turn your head and coughs.
[44:25] Speaker 3: Squat and cough. She's missing everything obviously of her life,
[44:30] Speaker 3: you know, particularly her animals, because she had a bunch
[44:33] Speaker 3: of dogs. The quality of the food was something that
[44:37] Speaker 3: she found upsetting, of course, but it wasn't just for her,
[44:40] Speaker 3: but it was just like the poor nutrition that it
[44:42] Speaker 3: provided everyone. She's just like, this is this is like
[44:46] Speaker 3: pure carbohydrates and like it's not anyway.
[44:49] Speaker 2: This is stick to your ribs food.
[44:50] Speaker 3: This is not going to give you digestive issues and just.
[44:56] Speaker 2: Like simple carbs and fibers exactly.
[45:00] Speaker 3: And so she, like the other inmates, slept on a
[45:02] Speaker 3: crappy old mattress in an old metal bunk bed in
[45:05] Speaker 3: her cell. It was dismal.
[45:06] Speaker 2: Can you imagine just for a second, Martha trying to
[45:08] Speaker 2: like cheer up her place, like making some ruffling like
[45:12] Speaker 2: very pristine taking hard to get into a picture frames.
[45:17] Speaker 3: Exactly, but you know she's Martha. Yeah, and that's a
[45:20] Speaker 3: good thing. A few weeks after she went inside, she
[45:23] Speaker 3: released a statement via her website. She put on a
[45:26] Speaker 3: brave face quote, The camp is fine. It's pretty much
[45:29] Speaker 3: what I anticipated the best news. Everyone is nice, both
[45:33] Speaker 3: the officials and my fellow inmates. I've adjusted, and I'm
[45:36] Speaker 3: very busy. The camp is like an old fashioned college
[45:39] Speaker 3: campus without the freedom, of course. But see, Zaren, people
[45:43] Speaker 3: weren't always nice. Oh close your eye, Oh, I want
[45:48] Speaker 3: you to picture. You are an inmate at Federal Prison
[45:57] Speaker 3: Camp Alderson, aka Camp Cupcake. You are in prison for
[46:01] Speaker 3: mail fraud. You got caught up in an MLM and
[46:04] Speaker 3: there were checks involved, and it got very confusing, and
[46:07] Speaker 3: you knew you were doing something not right, but you
[46:10] Speaker 3: never imagined it would land you behind bars. It's a beautiful,
[46:14] Speaker 3: unseasonably warm, early spring day. You're a trustee, meaning you
[46:19] Speaker 3: do jobs around the prison that allow you all sorts
[46:21] Speaker 3: of access. You take paper files from one office to another,
[46:25] Speaker 3: You help do light maintenance, and sometimes you work in
[46:28] Speaker 3: the laundry. That's where you were able to meet Martha Stewart.
[46:31] Speaker 3: You were shocked by how kind and serene she was
[46:34] Speaker 3: very personable and chatty. Pretty soon you didn't even think
[46:38] Speaker 3: of her as famous. She was as Martha. Today, you're
[46:42] Speaker 3: mopping a wide hallway. Heavy doors buzz open, some guards
[46:46] Speaker 3: stride pasted. You head into wherever they seem to be
[46:49] Speaker 3: constantly going. You are at the intersection of another wide hallway.
[46:54] Speaker 3: You hear a door buzz open, and you see two
[46:56] Speaker 3: sharply dressed administrators come towards you on your right. Their
[47:00] Speaker 3: shoes squeak on the polished cement floors. You know these women.
[47:04] Speaker 3: They aren't very nice. You look to your left when
[47:07] Speaker 3: you catch a figure out of the corner of your eye.
[47:10] Speaker 3: It's Martha. She looks to be headed to her job
[47:12] Speaker 3: at the laundry. As she approaches the administrators, Martha greets
[47:16] Speaker 3: them and mentions what a lovely, warm morning it is.
[47:19] Speaker 3: They don't respond. You slash them up in the bucket.
[47:22] Speaker 3: Martha then tells them they look very nice today. They
[47:25] Speaker 3: don't respond. As they pass each other in the hall,
[47:28] Speaker 3: you see Martha notice the big silver keychain attached to
[47:32] Speaker 3: the hip of the woman closest to her. You don't
[47:34] Speaker 3: know if it's accidental or if Martha was feeling particularly
[47:38] Speaker 3: devilish that day. You've heard her tell some very cutting jokes.
[47:42] Speaker 3: But as she comes even with the woman with the keys,
[47:44] Speaker 3: Martha swings her hand out and slightly brushes it against
[47:48] Speaker 3: the key ring. The women stop in their tracks. Martha
[47:51] Speaker 3: keeps strolling, now gently whistling a tune inmate, Stuart. The
[47:56] Speaker 3: woman with the keys barks, get back here. Martha stops
[48:00] Speaker 3: walking and stops whistling. She turns to look at the women. Yes,
[48:05] Speaker 3: she says to them, you slash the mop in the
[48:08] Speaker 3: bucket again, punctuating the silence. Get over here, she shouts
[48:12] Speaker 3: at Martha. Martha raises an eyebrow and heads back. Yes,
[48:16] Speaker 3: can I help you? She asks, her chin up and
[48:19] Speaker 3: a rye smirk on her face. The woman with the
[48:21] Speaker 3: keys grabs Martha by the upper arm and yanks her
[48:24] Speaker 3: towards her. You touched an officer. You cannot touch an officer,
[48:28] Speaker 3: she says sternly. The other administrator pipes up that solitary
[48:32] Speaker 3: confinement for you. No food, no water, twenty four hours.
[48:36] Speaker 3: I thought this was camp cupcake, Martha mutters, as the
[48:39] Speaker 3: administrators drag her away and buzz themselves through another of
[48:43] Speaker 3: the heavy metal doors. Oh my god, they are putting
[48:47] Speaker 3: Martha in solitary, you think the shoe. No one is
[48:51] Speaker 3: going to believe this, And she didn't really touch the
[48:54] Speaker 3: woman or the keys. You think, man, Martha can't catch
[48:57] Speaker 3: a break. You resume mopping and make a mental note
[49:00] Speaker 3: to give administrators a wide berth when you pass them
[49:03] Speaker 3: in the hall.
[49:05] Speaker 2: Wow, Martha to the shoe, Martha.
[49:08] Speaker 3: Martha's time in solitary really showed her all the facets
[49:12] Speaker 3: of prison life. Like she it was. It was tough,
[49:17] Speaker 3: but like so she had had like these kind of
[49:18] Speaker 3: pleasant experiences of it's a college campus. But then she
[49:21] Speaker 3: realizes the slightest.
[49:23] Speaker 2: Thing, well, the domination and control.
[49:26] Speaker 3: Exactly so now she sees it in its totality.
[49:29] Speaker 2: I'm picturing her like in the solitary, like throwing the
[49:31] Speaker 2: ball against the wall like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
[49:36] Speaker 3: And like her time wasn't all bad. Obviously, she kept
[49:39] Speaker 3: a journal while she was there and has written pretty
[49:41] Speaker 3: extensively about it in some of her books. She has
[49:44] Speaker 3: this one book, the Martha Rules. Ten Essentials for Achieving
[49:48] Speaker 3: Success as you start, grow or manage a business.
[49:51] Speaker 2: Oh, I read the original one, Martha's forty eight Rules
[49:54] Speaker 2: of Power. Yes, welcome to the shoe. Sorry God.
[50:00] Speaker 3: So and there she made this observation quote, it is
[50:03] Speaker 3: no secret that I am accustomed to being in control
[50:07] Speaker 3: of my life and of my company. What became all
[50:10] Speaker 3: to a parent during my confinement was how many many
[50:13] Speaker 3: women are not in control of their lives or what
[50:16] Speaker 3: happens to them. They endure extraordinarily difficult situations, yet remain
[50:22] Speaker 3: very strong, nonetheless, both physically and emotionally. I made it
[50:26] Speaker 3: a priority to really try to understand my fellow inmates,
[50:29] Speaker 3: and they did the same for me. So she goes
[50:32] Speaker 3: in with this open mind. A lot of her fellow
[50:35] Speaker 3: inmates wanted to pick her brain about how she started
[50:38] Speaker 3: MSLO and how do she exploded it into this cash cow.
[50:43] Speaker 3: They wanted to know, how did you accomplish so much.
[50:45] Speaker 3: There was this group of Muslim inmates that approached her
[50:49] Speaker 3: and asked if she would speak at a form on
[50:51] Speaker 3: business practices that they were holding.
[50:53] Speaker 2: We've got a bakery, we want to know how can
[50:59] Speaker 2: we get this?
[51:00] Speaker 3: So she she gets permission from the warden to speak
[51:06] Speaker 3: to the you know, to the Muslim group, and she
[51:09] Speaker 3: starts prepping her presentation. And I think step one is
[51:13] Speaker 3: don't trust.
[51:13] Speaker 2: Your stockbroker is definitely good rule.
[51:17] Speaker 3: So Martha outlined how to develop what she called quote
[51:20] Speaker 3: a big idea, and then how you market it, right
[51:23] Speaker 3: down to all the fine details like internet advertising, all
[51:26] Speaker 3: this stuff. Presentation was a hit, and she stayed way
[51:30] Speaker 3: long afterwards to answer everyone's questions. And it was the
[51:33] Speaker 3: notes for the presentation that later became the Martha Rules
[51:37] Speaker 3: the Book. So while she was inside, Martha got back
[51:41] Speaker 3: into pottery. She learned a crochet. On the day that
[51:45] Speaker 3: she was released from prison March fourth, two thousand and five,
[51:48] Speaker 3: she did her full five months a full bid. She
[51:52] Speaker 3: wore this really intricately crocheted poncho that was made for
[51:56] Speaker 3: her by her new friend and fellow inmate, Shomara her Nandez.
[52:00] Speaker 2: I think I remember this picture, yeah, picture, yeah, yeah.
[52:03] Speaker 3: So she comes out wearing the poncho and she's just like,
[52:06] Speaker 3: uh uh like undeterred of this time. She later wrote quote,
[52:10] Speaker 3: I knew it was time to assess my life again.
[52:13] Speaker 3: During my stay, I had been so fortunate to have
[52:15] Speaker 3: a steady stream of family and friends who visited me.
[52:19] Speaker 3: Believe me, many women in prison are visited by no
[52:22] Speaker 3: one for years. There are many things that I missed
[52:25] Speaker 3: my animals, my homes, fresh food, travel, and the daily
[52:28] Speaker 3: challenges of managing an endlessly interesting business. But there were
[52:33] Speaker 3: just as many wonderful things that I had gathered during
[52:35] Speaker 3: those five months. New friendships, so many ideas, and so
[52:39] Speaker 3: much information and knowledge from fascinating books that I actually
[52:43] Speaker 3: had the time to read. I also gained a new
[52:45] Speaker 3: appreciation for the complexity of every single person's situation.
[52:50] Speaker 2: I was jumped into the best prison gang. I'm met
[52:53] Speaker 2: somebody who ran the yard, and that was great for
[52:56] Speaker 2: me because I learned how they run a yard as
[52:58] Speaker 2: opposed to how I run my yard.
[53:00] Speaker 3: Tattoos.
[53:01] Speaker 2: I got some skin art done, mostly stick and poke,
[53:04] Speaker 2: but it was really beautiful stuff.
[53:06] Speaker 3: So Martha got out. She's a new woman, but also
[53:09] Speaker 3: the same old tough Martha.
[53:10] Speaker 2: Yes.
[53:11] Speaker 3: August seventh, two thousand and six, the SEC announced a
[53:14] Speaker 3: settlement of its civil case. Under the settlement, Martha paid
[53:18] Speaker 3: back forty five thousand in avoided losses plus twelve thousand
[53:23] Speaker 3: something in interest. She had to pay a civil penalty
[53:26] Speaker 3: of one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars that's three
[53:29] Speaker 3: times the avoided losses. She had to accept a five
[53:32] Speaker 3: year ban on serving as a director of a public company,
[53:36] Speaker 3: and she had to accept a five year limitation on
[53:38] Speaker 3: her role as an officer or employee of a public company,
[53:42] Speaker 3: excluding her from involvement in financial reporting, SEC filings, internal controls,
[53:47] Speaker 3: and related functions. Sure so this is also she settled
[53:52] Speaker 3: without admitting or denying the allegations, which is like typical
[53:56] Speaker 3: for SEC civil settlements. After her prison and home confinement period,
[54:01] Speaker 3: she focused on rebuilding the business, like the credibility of it,
[54:05] Speaker 3: and expanding her brand into new channels. And people welcomed
[54:09] Speaker 3: her back yea, because she wasn't ashamed.
[54:12] Speaker 2: I think she was broken.
[54:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And so she's just like, this is who
[54:16] Speaker 3: I am, this is what I did. Let's let's keep
[54:18] Speaker 3: going interesting.
[54:19] Speaker 2: People rallied around her. Yeah.
[54:21] Speaker 3: So in two thousand and six, MSLO launched new lifestyle
[54:25] Speaker 3: lines and partnerships. They had this multi year agreement with
[54:29] Speaker 3: a company to manufacture and market a line of carpet tiles.
[54:33] Speaker 3: They had a new line of interior paint at Low's,
[54:36] Speaker 3: which replaced a previous paint partner. Around two thousand and seven,
[54:41] Speaker 3: she launched a homewares line at Macy's. So she goes
[54:44] Speaker 3: a step up featuring more than two thousand items. That
[54:48] Speaker 3: was described as the largest brand launch in Macy's history
[54:52] Speaker 3: of the time.
[54:52] Speaker 2: Good for her.
[54:53] Speaker 3: On the media side, her network extended into satellite radio.
[54:57] Speaker 3: There's a serious XM channel Martha Stewart Living Radio, publishing
[55:02] Speaker 3: and content still played a role. They tested and launched
[55:06] Speaker 3: various magazine titles aimed at younger demographics. So they had
[55:09] Speaker 3: one like Blueprint Design Your Life. In the push into
[55:14] Speaker 3: mass licensing, home goods, paint, blah blah blah. She's leveraging
[55:18] Speaker 3: the Martha name, like beyond everything that has had and
[55:21] Speaker 3: it's trust building for the public. So the new product
[55:25] Speaker 3: lines media ventures. They reframe her as this resilient entrepreneur
[55:30] Speaker 3: rather than like making her purely scandal anker. And we
[55:34] Speaker 3: see that MSLO goes from being a high growth IPO
[55:38] Speaker 3: company into like a more diversified licensing and brand managements.
[55:43] Speaker 2: And just for the people. It makes her far more real.
[55:45] Speaker 2: She was previously a perfectionist, and now she's gone to
[55:47] Speaker 2: prison and come out and redeemed herself. She can't be
[55:50] Speaker 2: whether she was the ice cream before exactly.
[55:52] Speaker 3: She's sort of humbled by it, but yet not brought low.
[55:57] Speaker 2: She's like broad she's been she knows of the people
[56:01] Speaker 2: now right exactly thought ent her farmhouse over there wherever.
[56:04] Speaker 3: When the van was lifted. September of twenty eleven, she
[56:08] Speaker 3: rejoined the board of MSLO and then May of twenty
[56:12] Speaker 3: twelve she became non executive chair of the company. Again,
[56:16] Speaker 3: their retail like licensing relationships got a little bit of tension.
[56:20] Speaker 3: There was a legal dispute between Macy's and Martha Stewart
[56:25] Speaker 3: Living Omnimedia J C. Penny over who had the exclusive
[56:29] Speaker 3: rights to her home care or her home products. On
[56:33] Speaker 3: the media side, that flagship Martha Stewart Living Magazine and
[56:38] Speaker 3: all the other print publications, you know, they were going
[56:41] Speaker 3: up against the deaths of the magazine industry, you know,
[56:45] Speaker 3: declining subscriptions and ad revenues. Digital media is gaining strengths,
[56:49] Speaker 3: so they have to kind of pivot around there. In
[56:52] Speaker 3: twenty eleven, New York Magazine reported that Martha Stewart Living
[56:55] Speaker 3: Magazine had been profitable only once in the previous eight years.
[57:00] Speaker 2: A so you know, it was more of like an
[57:02] Speaker 2: advertising arm for the rest of Ust totally.
[57:05] Speaker 3: And then so they you know, they then lost later, yes,
[57:07] Speaker 3: they'd start leaning more into like the collaborations on stuff
[57:12] Speaker 3: they adapted to online catalog commerce, that kind of stuff.
[57:16] Speaker 3: June twenty second, twenty fifteen, MSLO agreed to be acquired
[57:21] Speaker 3: by Sequential Brands Group for roughly three hundred and fifty
[57:24] Speaker 3: three million dollars. And then on April sixteenth, twenty nineteen,
[57:28] Speaker 3: Sequential Brands agreed to sell MSLO and the Emerald brand,
[57:33] Speaker 3: which I guess they had already picked up to Marquee
[57:35] Speaker 3: Brands for one hundred and seventy five million with additional
[57:38] Speaker 3: contingent payments. So with that acquisition, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
[57:44] Speaker 3: stopped being a publicly traded company. The ticker was delisted.
[57:48] Speaker 3: It became a privately held brand portfolio. Martha retained involvement
[57:54] Speaker 3: basically as brand ambassador. She was not the operating CEO. Okay,
[57:59] Speaker 3: and so from twenty nineteen onward she has focused on
[58:02] Speaker 3: expansion into new product categories like digital stuff all these partnerships.
[58:08] Speaker 3: In twenty twenty five, she went into skincare. Apparently she
[58:11] Speaker 3: has a skincare line now Elm Biosciences targeted for women
[58:16] Speaker 3: of a certain age. She also got amazing plastic surgery
[58:20] Speaker 3: that looks natural. Kids call a glow up.
[58:23] Speaker 2: Yeah. I never am able to track that stuff. I
[58:25] Speaker 2: just think if they suddenly just too much their face,
[58:28] Speaker 2: I'm like, they must have.
[58:29] Speaker 3: No, she just looks amazing, Like she's.
[58:31] Speaker 2: Like got brad Pitt's people where they're like, oh, you
[58:33] Speaker 2: can't really tell. Bradley Cooper's people are like, oh, it's like,
[58:36] Speaker 2: is that very man you pulled too tight?
[58:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, there's like clips on the back of their head.
[58:41] Speaker 3: So she's still all over television and online media. And
[58:45] Speaker 3: then there's her friendship with Snoop.
[58:47] Speaker 2: I was like holding my tongue on that. Yeah, I
[58:48] Speaker 2: figure you hadn't mentioned it yet.
[58:51] Speaker 3: It starts off In November of two thousand and eight,
[58:53] Speaker 3: Snoop appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and he and
[58:57] Speaker 3: Martha made mashed potatoes together, and then she learned his
[59:00] Speaker 3: vocabulary like phoushizzle. The next year, they reunited on the
[59:05] Speaker 3: show for a holiday episode, making green Brownie.
[59:08] Speaker 2: That's what I remember.
[59:09] Speaker 3: Yeah. November seventh, twenty sixteen, Martha and Snoop's pot luck
[59:14] Speaker 3: dinner party premiered on VH one.
[59:16] Speaker 2: She's really leaning into the whole pot thing, right.
[59:18] Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, and so they had like celebrity guests themed
[59:22] Speaker 3: dinner parties, and they like fun banter. April third, twenty nineteen,
[59:27] Speaker 3: they launched a spinoff, Martha and Snoop's pot Luck Party Challenge,
[59:32] Speaker 3: where Snoop and Martha competed with celebrity friends and cooking challenges.
[59:37] Speaker 2: I don't remember that, yeah.
[59:39] Speaker 3: In October of twenty eighteen, Martha wrote the foreword for
[59:42] Speaker 3: Snoop Dogg's cookbook, From Crook to Cook Platinum Recipes from
[59:47] Speaker 3: the Boss Dog's Kitchen.
[59:49] Speaker 2: Snoop the Cookbook, I had no idea. From Crook to
[59:52] Speaker 2: Cook Platinum Recipes.
[59:55] Speaker 3: Platinum Recipes from the Thha Boston Kitchen twy seconds. Twenty
[1:00:00] Speaker 3: twenty two, Martha launched the Martha Stewart Podcast, and Snoop
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: was her first guest.
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: Of course. I mean now they're branded, yeah this point.
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: November twenty twenty three, Martha and Snoop teamed up with
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: the brand Bick, the lighter company.
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: Yeah about ask Click Click launched.
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: Its easy reach utility lighters and tapped Martha and Snoop
[1:00:20] Speaker 3: as like co faces of the campaign, positioning them as
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: quote best buds who needed safer, longer neck lighters for candles, grills,
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: and then weed was heavily implied.
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: Oh, they have so many uses for a long necked bit.
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: And then there was Best Buds Bags, which were cross
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: body bags designed to hold a big, easy reach lighter
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: and they were promoted as like weed friendly and stylish,
[1:00:46] Speaker 3: and each one of them designed their own bags.
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: Are you a Dope Dealer on the go?
[1:00:49] Speaker 3: They've also co hosted and appeared together at a bunch
[1:00:53] Speaker 3: of different events, the twenty twenty one and twenty twenty
[1:00:57] Speaker 3: two Puppy.
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: Bowl Oh Okay.
[1:01:00] Speaker 3: Rival coaches of Team Rough and Team Fluff, and they
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: appeared throughout the three hour special. They were Halloween themed specials.
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: There was the Olympics where Martha got snooped to ride
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: a horse and get super into dressauce that was actually
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: really that was really funny, and other TV like live
[1:01:17] Speaker 3: event tie ins. What's Martha doing these days?
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: What is she doing these days? Elizabeth?
[1:01:21] Speaker 3: She's currently co host and executive producer of Yes Chef
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: on NBC. Never heard of it. It's twelve talented but
[1:01:28] Speaker 3: hot tempered chefs face off against each other.
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, before before we leave, Snoop, did Snoop ever
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: get to take Martha to like the hood or like
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: the cookout or anything.
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: Seems like he's always doing.
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, she's doing the plotlucks with her. Does she ever
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: like go like Martha at the cookout in Long Beach?
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: Maybe?
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: Check I wrote my check in.
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. Did she has she
[1:01:54] Speaker 3: appeared in any videos?
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: I tried my hand at the Magic City recipe for
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: the wings.
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: Oh that Magic City Love and Pepper so chef Jose Andres.
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: Is her guy.
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: He's a really good dude. The Martha Stewart Channel is
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: a free streaming service on Pluto TV. Has over a
[1:02:11] Speaker 3: thousand episodes just on on a loop. Sure there's you know.
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: She's also doing the print publication again. Martha Stewart Holidays
[1:02:18] Speaker 3: is out for twenty twenty five covers Thanksgiving through New Year's.
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: Kind of boiled her peak seasons.
[1:02:25] Speaker 3: Yes, exactly so. The Martha Stewart aesthetic, as they call it,
[1:02:29] Speaker 3: is supposed to be like, according to trend watchers, like
[1:02:31] Speaker 3: booming this year and into next.
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: I could see that because it's like.
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: The boho nature based decor slow living.
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, slow living, but also has an error traditionalism without
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: being conc.
[1:02:42] Speaker 3: The gtalgia that the millennials call.
[1:02:44] Speaker 2: That is true nostalgia for the early two thousands.
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: So Martha, she's involved in real estate design production collaborations.
[1:02:51] Speaker 3: She's got a housing kit line that uses four home
[1:02:55] Speaker 3: style models inspired by her own estates in med for at,
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: East Hampton, New York and Maine. You can buy like
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: you can buy one of her riffing off of them. Sure,
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: basically Martha's out there living her best life, looking amazing
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: for her breaking in money. However, I doubt she's as
[1:03:14] Speaker 3: happy is Ina Garten, and happiness is what really matters.
[1:03:18] Speaker 3: Is there? What's your ridiculous takeaway?
[1:03:23] Speaker 2: I mean, I hate to limit it to her friendship
[1:03:25] Speaker 2: with Snoop. You know I know the most about that,
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: and but I'm okay, you know what, forget that, I'm
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: skipping that. I'm going to say the ridiculous part is
[1:03:35] Speaker 2: that her time in prison really made her. It was
[1:03:39] Speaker 2: one of the few instances of like, oh, it reformed her,
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: maybe not her personally, but her brand. So at least
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: prison for once worked out and did the thing it's
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: supposed to do, which is make a person better when
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: they come out. So that's ridiculous. You didn't think that
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: prison would make Martha Steward a better person.
[1:03:54] Speaker 3: Exactly?
[1:03:55] Speaker 2: How about that?
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: Exactly? I don't mess with Martha.
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: You came in with that.
[1:04:02] Speaker 3: You just don't mess with the Big Dome with it too.
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: I'm living with it too. I would love a talkback, actually, Dave.
[1:04:13] Speaker 2: Oh my god, Suber Hello, Jee.
[1:04:22] Speaker 3: Hello.
[1:04:23] Speaker 4: I was listening to an episode a couple of months ago.
[1:04:26] Speaker 4: I don't remember which one it wasn't it doesn't matter,
[1:04:28] Speaker 4: but Zaron was saying that he thinks the Fahrenheit's system
[1:04:32] Speaker 4: is a better system of temperature than Celsius, and I thought, wow,
[1:04:37] Speaker 4: Zaron seems like a smart man. I'd love to hear
[1:04:39] Speaker 4: his reasoning for that. Something that makes more sense than
[1:04:44] Speaker 4: zero degrees water freezers, one hundred degrees water boils and
[1:04:48] Speaker 4: his reason bigger number sound hotter?
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: It is?
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: It is, It is true. It seems more tied to
[1:04:55] Speaker 2: the human body as opposed to tied to the dimensions
[1:04:58] Speaker 2: of water, and then what it as different states. So
[1:05:01] Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, if you tell me that the
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: like the weather I'm going to be dealing with, Fahrenheit
[1:05:06] Speaker 2: helps me as a human being, And there's more of
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: us than than I think sentient water.
[1:05:10] Speaker 3: So I just like anything that's not scientific.
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: Yeah I know that, but trust I'm so you're a
[1:05:17] Speaker 2: man of science. But theoretically, yeah, i'm a I think
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: it's great for science. I love the metric system. I
[1:05:23] Speaker 2: wish I wish we would have taught Americans this so
[1:05:25] Speaker 2: we weren't these like holdouts with our stupid system. I
[1:05:28] Speaker 2: think our whole like you continuing use of like whatever,
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: the royal system, like the foots and pounds and all
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: this stuff we do. It's silly. I would love to
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: go to the metric system, except for Celsius for whatever reason,
[1:05:39] Speaker 2: just doesn't work for weather, and that's really when we
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: talk about temperature for the most part. And for cooking.
[1:05:44] Speaker 2: I don't know how it would go because I don't cook,
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: so I really can't tell you, like if three hundred
[1:05:48] Speaker 2: and fifty degrees it's gonna be better. People use celsius
[1:05:52] Speaker 2: when you're cooking, or do they do it like British? See,
[1:05:58] Speaker 2: I don't even know. That's how little cooking or reading
[1:06:00] Speaker 2: of cookbooks I do.
[1:06:01] Speaker 3: I just like I like more ballpark measurements, like yay, big.
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're all about that at just pinch of this sprinkle.
[1:06:10] Speaker 3: If I want to say it's hot, What's what's the temperature? Jubble,
[1:06:14] Speaker 3: It's really hot and muggy. Okay, I'm that's it for today.
[1:06:18] Speaker 3: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
[1:06:21] Speaker 3: We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram.
[1:06:25] Speaker 3: We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime. Podda email Ridiculous Crime
[1:06:29] Speaker 3: at gmail dot com, leave a talkback on the iHeart
[1:06:32] Speaker 3: Apple reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dunnan
[1:06:40] Speaker 3: Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Domestic Warlock Dave Cousten
[1:06:45] Speaker 3: starring and Least Rutgers Judith. Research is by Robin Zig,
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: Blue Craft Paint enthusiast Marissa Brown and Hot Blue Gunslinger
[1:06:53] Speaker 3: Jabari Davis. The theme song is by Martha's Potato Harvester
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Turkey Hill in House Quesadilla Cooked Travis Dutton.
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred Guest hair
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
[1:07:07] Speaker 3: two guys out of Martha Stewart Wath Building Seminar, Ben
[1:07:10] Speaker 3: Boleen and Noel Brown.
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: Redicus Crime Say It One More Time Crime.
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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