Advice We Learned From Martha Stewart That You Should Totally Avoid
Martha Stewart has made a name for herself — not to mention an astounding estimated net worth — in the art of domesticity. Have a question about towels? Ask Martha! How to make the perfect brownies? You know where to go. What's up with Snoop Dogg? She'll also have an answer for that. In fact, there's a Reddit thread on "Ask Me Anything" called "This is Martha Stewart," where she answered fans' questions about anything from sex to the art of hosting a perfect dinner party. To save you the trouble, her sex advice was: "Always take a bath before and after." The thread has since been archived, but it's pure gold.
Stewart started out modeling as a teenager, and her professional life took off from there. In a very impressive record, she became the first American woman to be a self-made billionaire. But after going to prison for "conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements" (according to The Sun), her net worth dropped under the billion-dollar mark. Not to worry; she's not that hard up. Clearly, Stewart could offer some decent advice on how to make a comeback, because our girl found her way back to the spotlight.
Martha Stewart almost always gets it right when it comes to hosting, baking, bedding, and all things seasonal, but she's not infallible. There are some things she's said over the years that are either contradictory or completely wrong, and we've got the receipts.
Martha Stewart disses millennials
While Martha Stewart has an impressive work ethic, she got it wrong when analyzing millennials as a consumer demographic. In an interview with "Luxury Listings" in 2016, she underestimated people born from the 1980s to mid 1990s. "I think every business is trying to target millennials. But who are millennials?" Stewart asked (via Page Six). "Now we are finding out that they are living with their parents. They don't have the initiative to go out and find a little apartment and grow a tomato plant on the terrace."
Stewarts' lament was that millennials lack the pluck to pick themselves up by the bootstraps. "I understand the plight of younger people ... The economic circumstances out there are very grim," she added. "But you have to work for it. You have to strive for it. You have to go after it."
But many felt that Stewart glossed over the incredibly challenging world that millennials are trying to reconcile. It's not as simple as saying they lack "initiative." As economic policy writer Annie Lowrey wrote in The Atlantic, millennials joined the labor pool at the lowest economic "downturn since the Great Depression." Their employment options were often limited to low-wage jobs or contract and gig work, where benefits were a rarity and they were expected to pay off mammoth debt under these circumstances. They lack initiative? Go ask someone working multiple gigs with no healthcare if they lack initiative. Got it, millennials? Go out and grow a tomato!
Too much laundry for us, Martha!
On the "Ask Me Anything" Reddit thread that Martha Stewart got personally involved in, a fan inquired about a bedding rumor involving Stewart. "Is it true you change your bed sheets everyday?" they asked. Stewart responded with, "Yes. It's a luxury."
While this is certainly a posh response — and we would expect no less from Stewart — it also might be an excessive habit. Laundry takes a toll on the environment, and The Guardian noted that power and water usage are major factors. Washing items less often can help lessen their carbon footprint. Of course, some clothing items close to the body need to be laundered after every single use, but most items can be used or "worn five or more times" before landing in the laundry bin. The ecological laundry conversation continues, as "detergents, bleaches and softeners" can wreak havoc after toxins work their way back into the water supply.
On one hand, changing her sheets daily is Stewart's personal choice. However, shouldn't there be a level of responsibility held for someone who made an empire off of giving domestic advice? Her habit is arguably too luxurious and too hard on the environment. So how often should we wash our sheets? The Sleep Foundation recommends stripping our bedding once a week to deal with sweat and dead skin cells, and to ward off the threat of dust mites. Those with allergies or asthma might consider a more frequent laundry routine. Sorry, Martha! Once a day isn't going to happen.
Who needs sleep?
A running theme in Martha Stewart's interviews is the pride she has in her work ethic. Fair enough. Can't blame a gal for the hustle. But some of her advice might go a little too far. On an episode of her daytime show, Stewart was joined by the late Joan Rivers, and the audience asked them questions. A fan asked Stewart about her morning routine and Stewart said, "Well, I don't sleep very much." She went on, "I have lots of things on my mind. You know, I'm thinking a lot, and I think that that's a sign really of the entrepreneurial person within me. So they don't sleep a lot. They think a lot. They're busy."
Stewart and Rivers emphasized that they go to bed late and wake up early to care for their pups. Stewart added, "It's very good to have dogs because you do not stay in bed."
It's worth stating the obvious: quality and quantity of sleep are essential for good health as well as productivity. The CDC recommends that adults ages 18-60 get at least seven hours of sleep a night. Despite this guidance, there's a harmful cultural attitude which implies that successful people get ahead by sleeping less. Fatigue becomes a bragging right. In June 2021, Forbes noted, "With well-known entrepreneurs and business leaders speaking about their own sleep deprivation in recent years, it's not surprising that so many people think it's the key to success." Time to eradicate this thinking.
Parenting advice
Martha Stewart and Joan Rivers got into life and parenting advice on Stewart's daytime talk show in 2014. They agreed that they had "strong daughters," and Rivers touchingly said of hers, "She's the only woman in the world I want to look better than me, I want to be funnier than me, brighter than me, prettier than me. It's all altruistic when it comes to your daughter."
Stewart agreed. "I feel so much the same. I want Alexis [Stewart] to be ... the best in the whole world," she explained, adding that her daughter already is the best.
While this might be well and good, Stewart's daughter, Alexis, didn't see her home life as such a positive experience. In 2011, she published a self-help book called "Whateverland: Learning to Live Here," with TV host Jennifer Koppelman Hutt. Alexis dished on how challenging it was to be raised by Martha Stewart. "If I didn't do something perfectly, I had to do it again," she wrote (via ABC News). "I grew up with a glue gun pointed at my head."
Alexis claimed that her mom wasn't a child-focused parent; she wrote, "Martha was not interested in being kid-friendly. She would hand me things right before Christmas and say, 'Now wrap these but don't look inside.'" Many years after the tell-all, Alexis and Martha Stewart are more private about their relationship. Maybe Alexis needed to get some things off her chest.
Relationships with women in business
By all accounts, Martha Stewart knows what it takes to be a woman in business. On her daytime talk show, a member of the audience asked about "the special challenges facing a young woman starting a business." Joan Rivers wasn't interested in speaking from the angle of being a woman, and Stewart wasn't, either.
She held up a copy of her book, "The Martha Rules," and said, "I don't talk about being a woman; I don't talk about a glass ceiling. I don't talk about breaking rules or breaking into — no way. It's about what's inside of you. Do you have the big idea?" While this business approach might work for some, Stewart did miss the chance to address cases of intersectionality in the workplace.
Not only that, but Stewart has publicly negated other women in her field. She dissed Gwyneth Paltrow and her brand GOOP in a 2014 interview with Net-A-Porter (via Page Six). "She just needs to be quiet," Stewart said. "She's a movie star. If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn't be trying to be Martha Stewart." Ouch. In a 2013 interview with Bloomberg Television, Stewart spoke of Paltrow and added, "I think I started this whole category of lifestyle." She wants credit where it's due.
In a friendlier turn, Stewart mentioned Blake Lively in 2014, and was baffled that Lively wanted to pursue the lifestyle world at the time. "Why would you want to be me if you could be an actress?" Stewart wondered in a HuffPost interview.
Don't cut corners financially
Martha Stewart learned this the hard way so we don't have to. Stewart's massive trade scandal is kind of hard to mentally juggle in hindsight, considering how much she lost to make such a minimal amount. In 2001, she sold ImClone stock after getting a warning from company founder Sam Waksal, allegedly (per CNBC). Then in 2004, she was charged with "lying to federal prosecutors" and served a 5-month prison sentence. She did it for a sum of $51,000, per ABC News.
The amount seems measly compared to her $1 billion net worth at the time. Even more punishing, her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, fell out of the billionaire level in 2001 and dropped by nearly $300 million, according to Forbes. So the maneuver was definitely not worth a $51,000 profit.
The tragedy was not lost on Stewart, who spoke about the ordeal with Today in 2013. "It's hard to say, 'Good comes out of a bad time,'" Stewart said. "And that saying that, 'It only makes you better'? Oh my gosh. Bull. It's terrible," she added. "I lost a fortune." But Stewart is resilient, and she climbed out of the mess. "I was very confident, and some of my friends who didn't have that confidence, unfortunately, missed out on the comeback," Stewart told Today. "When you know inside that you're good, that you've done well, and that you are an honest, good person, then you know that you can live through disaster." Fair enough, but it was an expensive lesson to learn!
Unique divorce advice
Martha Stewart was married once to publisher Andrew Stewart, and the pair made it almost three decades before parting ways. They divorced in 1990, according to People, and share a daughter, Alexis Stewart. Following their divorce, Andrew married Martha's former assistant, Robyn Fairclough, who happened to be 21 years younger than Andrew.
The divorce must have been tough because years later, our lifestyle guru offered some unique, and slightly biting, advice on how to survive the end of a marriage. In an interview on "Bethenny" in 2013, Stewart said that the divorce was "his choice" and not hers. "The best thing to do," Stewart explained, "is think of your partner as a piece of you-know-what, and it's over, and get on with your life." Clearly, Stewart isn't one to waste time dwelling on things!
In her book "Whateverland: Learning to Live Here," Stewart's daughter, Alexis, shared some other interesting marital advice passed on to her by her mother. "A woman lived near us when I was little," Alexis began, "[and she] had married someone very wealthy and very unattractive, and my mother actually told me when I was a small child, 'Now Alexis, if this ever happens, you make sure you have sex with somebody else to have their baby. Don't have his baby'" (via ABC News). Yikes! While we might turn to Stewart for the perfect cupcake recipe, dating and relationship advice might not be at the top of the list.