Martha Stewart: The Homemaker Hustler Part 2
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. This is the second episode in our two-part series on Martha Stewart. I promise you it's worth it to start from the beginning. So if you haven't heard part one yet, do that first and then come back. I'll be here waiting for you. ♪

Sarah, are you, like me, weirdly afraid of prison? Like, I think about it a lot. I think I watched maybe too much Scared Straight as a kid. Yeah, I'm definitely really afraid of prison. It's the exact same reason I watch so much beyond Scared Straight. Fair enough. Well, I ask because in our last episode, Martha Stewart was feeling the heat for lying to federal investigators. Our champion of cream-colored napkins and elegant sunflower arrangements is known for a lot of things. But

But the centerpiece of her reputation isn't so glamorous. Let me take you to the time Martha girlbossed so hard that she ended up in prison. It's June 4th, 2003, and Martha Stewart is being chauffeured through lower Manhattan in a black town car.

It's a rainy afternoon, but she's prepared for the storm. She's wearing an off-white trench coat over a gray double-breasted blazer. It's giving J. Crew meets Commander-in-Chief. She's 61, but with her layered blonde bob and perfect skin, she looks much younger. She's not far from the headquarters of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. But this morning's destination is a federal courthouse.

When her car pulls up, Martha is swarmed by shouting reporters. Martha, is there any plea deal you would accept? Martha brushes past without saying a word. At a news conference earlier that day, U.S. Attorney James Comey announced that Martha and her stockbroker, Peter Bukanovic, had been federally indicted. Now, she's not being indicted for insider trading. The SEC is charging her for that. Instead, the feds are going after her for attempting to cover up the trade.

The official charges are obstructing justice and lying to investigators. Here's how Comey broke it down at a news conference. This criminal case is about lying. Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but because of what she did.

It is crazy to remember James Comey existed in a different context outside of Trump. Yeah, he used to have like another job. Well, rumors have been swirling about Martha's potential role in an insider trading scandal for about a year and a half now. And the media cannot get enough. She's been parodied on late night talk shows and in the tabloids.

Just last month, she was portrayed as an insufferable tyrant in a made-for-TV movie starring Cybill Shepherd. Like in this scene, where she's on the set of her cooking show and starts freaking out over lima beans. I'm sitting here talking about lima beans and there aren't any. Someone in my staff forgot to put out the lima beans. Excuse me? Why is everyone here so stupid?

Put this in the Criterion collection. Brilliant. Would it surprise you to know I've seen this movie so many times? I have never seen this, never heard of it. Will watch tonight. It's a classic. Well, despite all this ridicule, Martha has stubbornly maintained her innocence, which is exactly what she does today when she pleads not guilty. But this indictment is a serious blow to her company and to her reputation.

After she leaves the courthouse, her company announces that she's stepping down as chairwoman and CEO. But Martha is still staying on as chief executive officer, and she'll continue to rake in more than a million dollars annually. Plus, she's still the company's controlling shareholder. The day after her indictment, Martha launches a new kind of media venture, a website called MarthaTalks.com to share updates about her legal battle.

She writes an open letter and allows her fans to send her emails. She also takes out a full-page ad in USA Today to double down on her message of innocence. Martha is pulling out all the stops in her media blitz, but she knows she's about to lose control of the narrative. And when she does, the uncomfortable truth will finally come out. From Wondery, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers. And soon I'll be the hot

In our last episode, we followed Martha Stewart's rise from stockbroker to self-made billionaire to one of the biggest celebrities on the planet. And her fame only got bigger when she became the center of an insider trading scandal that threatened to destroy her company, her reputation, and her relationships. Now, Martha, her stockbroker Peter, and their friend Sam are facing prison time. But Martha is determined to come out on top. And

and leave even her closest allies in the dust. This is Martha Stewart: The Homemaker Hustler, Part 2. About a week after Martha's indictment, Sam Waxall stands before a judge in the same Manhattan courthouse. He's 55 years old and dressed in a dark blue suit.

Sarah, what do you remember about Sam? He's a guy who developed the cancer drug that hasn't been released yet, but has a lot of buzz. And most importantly, he's the one who's committing insider trading. Yes, great. Full marks. It's been about a year since Sam was charged with 13 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice. At first, he maintained his innocence, just like Martha did.

But eventually, he admitted to transferring tens of thousands of shares of his company's stock into his daughter's brokerage account and then telling her to sell. He also admitted to telling his daughter to lie to SEC investigators last year. Here's what he says to 60 Minutes. Because I actually believed that we could rectify the situation with the FDA very quickly, I didn't think I was going to get caught at all.

But now, Sam's facing significant prison time. He's been doing everything he can to show that he's learned his lesson. He even wrote the judge a six-page letter that referenced Albert Camus' The Stranger and The Talmud. But it's not just Sam writing letters. He also rallies more than 120 of his friends and family members to do the same. Some of them are even written by cancer patients who are hopeful about Erbitux, the drug that Sam helped develop.

It's the one that tanked Imclone stock when it didn't get FDA approval. Other letters are written by high-profile New Yorkers, like a retired justice on the state Supreme Court and the actress Lorraine Bracco, who is currently starring on a little show called The Sopranos. You know, there are episodes where celebrities randomly pop in and like it kind of makes sense, but Lorraine Bracco? Yeah, Lorraine Bracco.

Well, in the courtroom, Sam delivers a heartfelt monologue for the judge, saying, quote, I know that life begins on the other side of despair. He says he really tried to help cancer patients, but the judge isn't buying any of it. He finds Sam $3 million and hands out the maximum sentence, seven years and three months behind bars. ♪

The night before he goes to prison, Sam throws a let's party like it's my last night of freedom bash. At his loft in Soho, he hands out $600 magnums of Chateau Lafitte Rothschild to guests, including Sarah Lorraine. She reportedly tries to comfort Sam by telling him lots of inmates use the prison payphones for sex.

Rumor has it, Sam then propositions the women at the party. If I call you from jail, can we have phone sex? Is this her experience from being in like Goodfellas and The Sopranos? She's like, yeah, trust me, I did my research. This happens all the time.

Well, at one point, Sam's phone rings. And after he hangs up, he reportedly announces to the party that Martha herself called to send her regards. While her friends are guzzling champagne, Martha is laying low. And she's likely thinking about her own future. She's always been the queen of everything clean and tidy. But her messy public trial is about to air her dirtiest laundry. About six months after Sam reports to prison, Martha and her co-defendant Peter go to trial.

It's late January 2004, and reporters from all over the country crowd into the courtroom every day, desperate for the drama. But the truth is, the trial has been pretty boring so far. One reporter even describes the finance-heavy proceedings as excruciating.

But that all changes in early February when 28-year-old Doug Fanuel takes the stand. You might remember Doug from our last episode. He's the Ben Affleck lookalike who used to be Peter's assistant and Merrill Lynch, but not anymore. Both of them were fired in the wake of the insider trading scandal.

Up until a few months ago, Doug backed up Peter and Martha's cover story. He insisted that Martha had always planned to sell her shares of Imclone when the stock fell below $60. But after the government charged Doug with aiding in the cover-up, he flipped and agreed to cooperate in exchange for a lighter punishment. To Doug, taking the fall for a client just wasn't worth it, especially one like Martha, who he actively disliked.

The tabloids had a field day. A lowly assistant getting revenge on his wealthy boss and their most famous client? Headline, gold. Suddenly, Doug was America's sweetheart.

You know, I remember looking at a photo of Doug and he's a beautiful man and now he's America's sweetheart, you know? We love a bad boy gone good with a great jawline, that's for sure. Well, now on the stand, Doug talks about the day his boss, Peter, learned that Imclone stocks were about to trend down. Doug says that Peter called him and told him, quote, Oh my God, get Martha on the phone.

So Doug did just that. And then, on Martha's instruction, he proceeded to sell nearly 4,000 of her shares of Imclone. This directly contradicts what Martha and Peter have been telling investigators. Doug also says that he initially lied to the FBI and the SEC because Peter bribed him, offering him a paid vacation, an airline ticket, and additional pay.

Peter's defense attorney tries to discredit Doug by bringing up his drug use. Doug admits to using cocaine, ketamine, and ecstasy, though never while on the job.

So you're telling me that a guy in stocks isn't snorting coke all the time? Yeah, please. I saw Wolf of Wall Street. Seems like it's the norm. Well, the defense also tries to paint Doug as someone with a vendetta against Martha. They ask him to read from emails he sent during his time at Merrill Lynch. In one email to a friend, Doug described an early phone conversation with Martha by saying that he had, quote, never ever been treated more rudely by a stranger on the telephone.

Sarah, can you read the rest of his email? Yeah. He says, she made the most ridiculous sound I've heard coming from an adult in quite some time. Kind of like a lion roaring underwater. I laugh. I thought she was joking. And then she yelled, Merrill Lynch is laying off 10,000 employees because of people like that idiot. And then she hung up.

I feel like he probably has dealt with so many difficult people that it's kind of weak to make it seem like he had a personal vendetta against her. Yeah. And like the other thing, Sarah, is that the strategy just kind of backfires, right?

The defense is trying to show that Doug is biased against Martha, but they just end up reinforcing Martha's reputation as a jerk. And Peter's lawyers don't stop there. They also bring in an email Doug wrote to his boyfriend where he said, quote, Martha yelled at me again today, but I snapped at her face and she actually backed down. Baby put Miss Martha in her place. Brave. Doug is so brave for that. And you know what? She probably respected it. Yeah, she probably did.

Doug isn't the only one to shake up the trial. One of Martha's oldest friends testifies that she remembers Martha saying, not too long after dumping her ImClone stock, quote, "Isn't it nice to have a broker who will tell you things?" And Martha's former assistant breaks down sobbing on the stand after saying she saw Martha tamper with evidence. About a month later, the jury reaches a verdict. They find Martha and Peter guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and lying to federal investigators.

Martha's daughter, Alexis, is so shocked that she faints in court.

Doug manages to avoid prison and probation. He gets off with a misdemeanor and a $2,000 fine for accepting a payoff from Peter during the investigation. He gets teary-eyed as he apologizes to the courtroom and reads a prepared statement. He says, quote, facing an aggressive legal assault on my character, I didn't believe that the truth would carry enough weight to be heard clearly, particularly against rich and powerful people. I was wrong, and for that I am immensely grateful.

And more importantly, Baby has put Martha in her place. It's a cloudy Friday in July of 2004, about four months after Martha was found guilty. She stands on the steps of the courthouse looking uncharacteristically exhausted. She's wearing a black collared suit jacket and modest diamond earrings. And her hair is a little less than perfect.

She's just been sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five months on house arrest. It's actually the minimum sentence she could have received. The judge went easy on her after reading more than 1,500 letters of support, including from Rosie O'Donnell and Bill Cosby.

What a time. I mean, we were more innocent then. We were more innocent then, but it is like, yeah, of course Martha Stewart can get 1,500 letters. She's Martha Stewart. It doesn't mean what she did is right. Well, Martha stares straight into the camera and tells reporters... Today is a shameful day. It's shameful for me and for my family. What was a small personal matter became over the last two years...

an almost fatal circus event of unprecedented proportions. Oh, come on. It wasn't a small personal matter. Like, you're extremely famous and you did insider trading. Like, you know that's what happens when famous people break the law. Yeah, that's a goofy response. And Martha's stockbroker, Peter, got the same sentence. Five months in prison and five months of home detention. But unlike Martha, he'll have no job and no company to come back to after prison.

He tells the judge that it's been a horrible ordeal for him and his family, and he deeply regrets the sorrow this case has caused them.

you know what? Martha doesn't seem sorry at all. She takes to her website, MarthaTalks.com, and she posts an early draft of a letter she wrote to the judge prior to her sentencing. Sarah, please read a bit for us. She says, to believe that I would sell to avoid a loss of less than $45,000 and thus jeopardize my life, my career, and the well-being of hundreds of others, my cherished colleagues and partners is very, very wrong.

I mean, when she puts it that way, yes, it does sound like why would she do that for a relatively small sum for a billionaire? But I have a feeling she's more in it for the game than she is the actual gains. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, like $45,000 is like a joke for sure. Yeah, and maybe that's the biggest shame of all, that it was such a small amount of money and she got caught.

Yeah. While Martha's spokesperson later says that this draft of the letter, in which Martha also calls Sam, quote, a bit crazy, was posted to her website by accident. It's quickly replaced by a version that instead reads, because I intend to appeal the verdict, it is inappropriate for me to discuss the facts of my case in this letter. But about two months later, Martha makes a shocking about face. She requests to begin serving her prison sentence immediately, even though she's still waiting on her appeal to be heard.

She gives the most Martha explanation imaginable, that if she surrenders now, she'll be released in time for the spring planting season. See, this is why she's a billionaire. She has her priorities straight. She knows how to make money and she knows what's needed from her. Correct. But Martha later admits to an ulterior motive. She's got two TV shows booked and she needs to shoot them in the spring if they're going to air the next fall.

She's eager to put these troubles behind her and get back to running her media empire. She reports to prison in Alderson, West Virginia in early October, 2004. And thus begins Martha's half year of government mandated rest and relaxation. Margaret Roach is in her late forties with shoulder length, brown hair and bangs swept to the side. She's the editorial director at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, but her job has taken some unexpected turns lately, like today.

It involves playing a game of Scrabble with her boss, who is being held in a minimum security prison about 500 miles away from their Chelsea office.

But this campus looks more like a university than a prison, with its colonial-style brick building, manicured lawns, and big shady trees. Martha pretty much treats it like a home upstate. She's just constantly inviting guests. I mean, they don't show you this on Beyond Scared Straight. No, this is not what happens in that show. Margaret and Martha are playing Scrabble in the visiting room when Martha suddenly jumps up from her chair and shouts, Wall Dogg.

Margaret is startled, but none of the prison guards bat an eye. This is apparently normal behavior for their most famous inmate. Margaret cautiously follows Martha to the wall, where she watches her boss bend into a modified version of a downward dog. Martha tells Margaret that she's gotten really into yoga lately. She's even been teaching classes to fellow inmates. She's also learning pottery, picking dandelion greens, and collecting crab apples from the trees.

A fellow inmate tells the New York Post that others would have gotten punished for picking apples, but not Martha.

In the March 2005 issue of Martha Stewart Living, Margaret writes an unusually long letter from the editor. In it, she praises Martha for refusing to let prison get her down. Can you read this excerpt? It says, She is indeed ready to get planting, having ordered her seeds and made extensive to-do lists, just as she would have done in any winter. That's the thing about Martha. She is always Martha and never idle or distracted or down.

This sounds like something a cult member would write about their leader. Well, Martha has managed to remain herself even in prison. But the people she's left behind don't have that luxury.

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It's just after midnight on a Friday in March 2005. A motorcade rolls up to the tarmac at a small airport in West Virginia. The door of a black SUV opens and Martha steps out. After five months in prison, she's been released and is heading home to Bedford, New York. She's wearing jeans, heeled boots, and a gray knit poncho. Martha smiles and waves to reporters and cameras as she makes her way to a private jet.

The photos of her boarding the plane instantly become iconic. Sarah, can you describe this one? This looks like when someone is released from like a foreign hostage situation and they're being sent home. This makes her look like she was a victim to something. Yeah, like a prisoner of war. Well, it's the early aughts. So once Martha gets home, she simply has to post some reflections on her blog.

She writes that prison has been, quote, life-altering and life-affirming. Martha takes the weekend to decompress. But on Monday, she's right back to work with a new accessory, an ankle monitor. She pairs it with a brown suit, gold jewelry, and high heels. She's on house arrest, and she can't spend more than 48 hours a week outside of her home. So she makes every second at the office count.

When she walks in the front door, hundreds of her employees rush over to her and start clapping. She beams from ear to ear and blows kisses to the crowd. A few reporters have been invited under one condition. No questions. Martha gets a little teary-eyed when she tells her audience that, while in prison, she read, reflected, and quote, learned a lot about our country. Oh my God. Give it a rest.

Well, Martha tells her staffers that they're all starting a new chapter together. She wants to meet women where they are, whether that's in a Connecticut farmhouse or in a West Virginia prison. She says they're going to inspire new audiences who might think things like homemaking, cooking, and gardening seem a little superficial.

At one point, she holds up the poncho she wore the night she left Alderson. She says it was knitted for her by a wonderful lady she befriended there. It's a symbol of this new, down-to-earth Martha. ♪

Over the next few months, she sets out to remake her images in Every Woman. And to do so, she reportedly works 80 hours a week and sleeps just four hours a day. She allows her magazine staff to mention the word microwave for the first time. And she announces plans for a TV show where she helps down-on-their-luck women get back on their feet while renovating a home together. This show never actually happens, in part because Martha's probation rules prevent her from hanging out with felons.

But Martha does start shooting her Apprentice spinoff for NBC, which airs in September 2005, just six months after her release from prison. And Sarah, I know you're going to like this. One of the contestants on Martha's Apprentice is a young Bethany Frankel. As you know, she will go on to even bigger reality show fame as a real housewife of New York.

I really did not know this at all, and I'm terrified. It sounds about right to me. Well, around the time the show airs, Martha sits down for a bunch of interviews to promote it. But understandably, all anyone wants to talk about is prison. Like when Terry Gross asks Martha if prison was actually kind of relaxing compared to her daily grind.

Martha is not amused. I'm really over prison. I can think about it privately. But to talk about it day in and day out is more tiresome than I wish. I am on with my life. Martha's rehabilitated image is a delicate house of cards. And one of her former friends is getting ready to knock it all down.

It's the fall of 2006, about a year after Martha's spinoff of The Apprentice airs. Peter has been out of prison for two years, and he's living in a townhouse in Manhattan. He's in his mid-40s now, but he's still got a full head of dark blonde hair and manicured eyebrows. ♪

One day, he picks up the September issue of Harper's Bazaar. Martha is interviewed in it, alongside the headline, The Seductive Side of Martha. The spread includes photos of her draped across a gold couch, wearing an Yves Saint Laurent top and Harry Winston diamonds. Peter is disgusted when he sees the magazine article. But it's not the headline or the costuming that he's fuming about. It's something Martha said in her interview.

Sarah, can you read what she told the magazine? Yeah, she said, I honestly don't remember exactly what I was prosecuted for. Martha, yes you do.

Well, Peter honestly can't believe it. He lost everything trying to cover for Martha. His career, his connections, his freedom, all gone. And now Martha dares to claim that she can't remember what exactly she was prosecuted for. Peter is so upset that he decides he needs to tell his side of the story. So he sits down with a reporter from the New York Times.

They meet at a white tablecloth Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. And Peter tells the reporter that his immune system has been destroyed from years of stress. He served the same amount of time as Martha, but his prison stint was far more brutal. ♪

While she was doing yoga and picking crab apples near the countryside, Peter was doing hard labor at a prison camp on an Air Force base near Las Vegas. Both Peter and Martha were assigned to minimum security prisons with mostly other white-collar criminals, so it's unclear why his experience was so different from hers. He tells the New York Times reporter that he's still wrecked by it. Mentally, emotionally, physically, he

He says he suffers from chronic allergies and has such severe bronchitis that he often has to stop to catch his breath when climbing stairs. He says, quote, I'm chronically sick and chronically unemployed and without any specific plan about how to proceed next.

Yeah, I do feel for Peter because like this is his actual job that was affected. But Martha was just dabbling in stocks like she still has her whole career and she's still going to be famous. Yeah. And Peter was also really loyal to Martha. He pled not guilty right alongside her, even though he probably would have avoided jail time if he pled guilty. And of course, if she'd just taken the plea bargain she was offered, both of them would have avoided that trial in the first place.

Peter also says the SEC slapped him with a $75,000 fine, all for a trade that he himself made zero money on. At one point, he says he was so strapped for cash that he called Martha's daughter, Alexis, and asked if Martha would help pay his legal fees for the trial. He says Alexis told him, quote, Peter is still stewing over Martha's post-prison comeback.

And it won't be long before he'll have something else to feel bitter about. His former client, Sam, is plotting a post-prison renaissance of his own. It's a Friday evening in October 2008. Sam has recently been released from prison after serving just five years of a seven-year sentence.

He's nursing a cup of tea in the lobby bar of the Carlisle, a luxury hotel and apartment building on the Upper East Side. He's here with one of Imclone's former board members, Richard Mulligan. Richard's got a beard and thin brown hair combed to one side. He's a Harvard professor and a pioneer in the field of gene therapy. Sam and Richard have been meeting just about every week since Sam got out of prison. Unlike Peter's time behind bars, Sam's wasn't so bad. He's compared it to a bad sleepaway camp.

He stayed busy playing basketball, tennis, and softball, and, apparently, by reading the entire Western canon of philosophy. Oh, and he wrote two novels and a memoir. Sam got his sentence reduced by participating in a rehab program, which seems to be a get-out-of-jail-sooner card for a lot of white-collar criminals. Now, he's living in a halfway house in the Bronx, and he and Richard have a lot to celebrate. ♪

Imclone has just been sold to pharma giant Eli Lilly. The deal is worth a whopping $6.5 billion. And Sam still holds options in the company, so he's just minted a fortune. But the real kicker? Eli Lilly mainly bought Imclone for Airbuttox. That's the cancer drug that caused this whole insider trading fiasco in the first place.

The irony is, just seven months after Sam went to prison, Erbitux did get FDA approval for treating colorectal cancer, and it's been a blockbuster drug ever since. ♪

That is poor timing. It's brutal, isn't it? Well, Sam has been vindicated. The drug he fought so hard to develop and swore would drastically improve people's lives is actually doing just that. But he's not one to sit back and cash in. He wants back in the game. So he and Richard start taking meetings with investors about a new business they want to start. He later tells New York Magazine, quote,

Sam's got a new lease on life. And meanwhile, Martha's about to escalate her comeback with the help of an unlikely new BFF. It's November 2008, about a month after Eli Lilly agreed to buy Imclone. Martha is washing potatoes in her modern farmhouse kitchen, which is actually the set of her TV show, Martha Stewart Living.

She's about to introduce today's guest, but she's really building up the drama. She says they first met backstage at the David Letterman show and they hit it off immediately. And then she flashes this photo of them together. Oh my God. I'm sighing because I...

I remember this so well. It's a photo of her and Snoop Dogg backstage and she's smiling and he has sunglasses on and this is like, oh my God, rapper with Martha Stewart. I know. Well, Snoop strolls onto the set and greets Martha with a kiss on the cheek. They spend the segment cooking mashed potatoes while flirting intensely with each other. And later on her blog...

Martha continues gushing over Snoop. She writes a post translating what she calls his secret code. And Sarah, yes, you will be reading some of this to me. Okay. She says, crack-a-lackin' means get something poppin'. Church means take a god everywhere you go and everything will be all right. All hood means all good. Ball till you fall means get as much money as you can before you die.

I can't express how much I loathe this and how I feel like I deserve compensation for reading that out loud. Well, that's what the money is for, as Don Draper says.

But on the surface, Martha and Snoop are total opposites, Sarah. It's exactly what you hate about this. She's a former model and stockbroker from New Jersey. She rose to fame as a new kind of homemaker. And Snoop is a platinum-selling rapper from Long Beach who once stood trial for the murder of a rival gang member. But at this point in their lives, they're both savvy business people with extreme wealth, which means they've got more in common than not. And Martha probably starts to realize it's not such a bad thing. ♪

She decides she's done toning herself down for the cameras. With Snoop as her guide, she's ready to embrace her totally shameless ball till you fall era. And she doesn't care who she screws over in the process. This is the point where things stop being about Martha, the company, and start being about Martha, a very rich and famous individual. In 2009, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reports a $14 million loss.

That same year, Martha takes home a $10 million salary. She also gets a $3 million retention bonus for renewing her contract with her own company. It probably helps that Martha sprinkled her friends on the company's board, like her former hairdresser.

At one point, two board members allegedly challenge her compensation. And according to New York Magazine, she asks them to resign. It's so crazy because this episode isn't one of the worst scams, you know, all things considered. Yeah. But this has made me dislike Martha Stewart in a way I didn't know was possible. Yeah. Well, you're not going to feel great about her after this. Because while her company is deep in the red, Martha is living large. And she doesn't care who knows it.

She tweets about going to Diddy's birthday party and posts photos of it on her blog. Here, Sarah, take a look at how she captions some of these photos. Oh, my God. Okay, well, here's a photo of her with Anthony Anderson. And the caption is, Here I am with Anthony Anderson, actor who was a guest on my television show. We made beautiful stone planters together. I'm eating a delicious grape popsicle.

Another photo is of her and a black man, and she's attempting to do a gang sign. What she's really doing is holding up her hand in a claw. She's holding up her hand in the claw and the caption goes, holla at me. And the last photo is truly unfortunate. It is of her and Harvey Weinstein. And the caption says, my friend, Harvey Weinstein.

Not one thing has aged poorly in there, certainly. By 2010, Martha starts throwing things at the wall to see what'll stick. And it seems like she's game to do anything as long as it means maintaining cultural relevance. Not long after Diddy's party, she pole dances on her TV show and even plays a version of herself on The Simpsons. But things are going so poorly for her company that reporters start speculating about whether she'll be forced to sell it. By 2012, the Martha Stewart Show has aired its last episode.

And Martha Stewart Omnimedia reports a roughly $50 million quarterly loss. The company announces it'll lay off 12% of its workforce and discontinue at least one of its print magazines. Things are looking bleak for her army of employees, but Martha herself isn't sweating it.

Maybe it's her new friendship with Snoop. Or maybe Martha's finally grown tired of pretending to be something she's not. Innocent, charitable, or even nice. She's on the verge of yet another big renaissance. And this time, it's no holds barred.

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For years, Martha's strategy had been to avoid talking about her time behind bars. But not anymore. In March 2015, exactly a decade after her release from prison, she decides to go on Comedy Central's roast of Justin Bieber. And rather than shy away from her criminal record, she fully embraces it. So,

Sarah, gird your loins. You see, when I did my stretch, all the hood rats on my cell block wanted to break off a piece of Martha Stewart's ass. So I decided some bitch needed to get got.

You know what? I don't think it's funny at all. It's just like the lowest, absolute lowest hanging fruit, Martha. Yeah, it's so stupid. I love it. Like, I'm sorry, you don't get a hood pass because you went to prison. Well, three months after the roast, Martha does something radical. She sells her company. It's like,

Sequential Media, which also owns brands from Justin Timberlake and Jessica Simpson, buys Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for a reported $353 million. It's just a fraction of what it was worth during its heyday, but the terms of the deal couldn't be sweeter for Martha. Under her new contract, she'll continue to get a multi-million dollar salary. Plus, according to securities filings, she'll get 3.5% of their gross licensing revenue for the rest of her life.

Martha spent decades working to keep her own company at the top. Now, she's finally free from the prison of her own creation, free from IPOs, advisory boards, and CEOs scrutinizing her salary. She's come to realize that in a new media landscape, she's more valuable on her own. She's got the name recognition, and without a board of directors breathing down her neck, she can pivot to meet the moment and make even more money. ♪

Martha wastes no time getting paid to do what she loves best, hanging out with Snoop in the kitchen. That's the premise of their new show on VH1, which airs a year after the roast of Justin Bieber. It's called Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party, and it is exactly what it sounds like. They host celebrity guests like 50 Cent, Lance Bass, Seth Rogen, and Post Malone. Martha reportedly takes in $1 million for the first season.

The show gets renewed twice, and it even has a spinoff series, which ends in February 2020. When COVID lockdowns start a month later, Martha sees a perfect opportunity for a new TV show. She decides to invite cameras into her Bedford, New York estate and showcase some of her cooking, gardening, and DIY projects during quarantine. Celebrity guests on the show include Lorraine Bracco.

Right before the show airs, 78-year-old Martha posts a seductive selfie on Instagram. Sarah, do you remember when she did this? Yeah, I remember it. It's like that pool selfie from like the good angle portrait mode. She's wearing full makeup. You know, she looks very sultry and she looks incredible. But again, I just don't see this as virtuous at all, which is kind of how it was received when it came out. Everyone was like,

Martha Stewart looks incredible. I stand so hard. And it's like, yeah, she's filthy rich. She will look incredible until she dies. You should look this good if you have that much money. And in May 2023, at the age of 81, she produces an even bigger viral moment when she appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. Martha becomes the oldest woman to do so ever. The magazine hails her as the original influencer. ♪

Almost two decades after her prison stint, Martha is finally experiencing the cool girl renaissance she always wanted. She gets a series of TV shows on the Roku channel. She starts her own podcast with iHeartRadio, releases a line of CBD gummies, collaborates with Snoop on a branded Bic lighter, and even opens a restaurant at the Paris and Las Vegas. ♪

I've been to that restaurant. I went with Jen, our producer. Did you have a great time? You know, that's really what put me off of Martha. It was like going to a cult business. They could not stop talking about her. Like they were scared of her and she was right behind them.

Well, as for Sam, the founder of Imclone, things are going pretty good for him too. His LinkedIn lists him as the chairman, CEO, and president of a new biopharma corporation. He's also a frequent commentator on Fox and CNBC discussing pharma and finance. And speaking of finance, Doug no longer works in it. According to his LinkedIn, he used to work at Gawker as the chief of staff of technology and products,

He now works in tech, and he will go down in history for putting Martha in her place. As for Peter, Doug's former boss, he found a second act in 2008 as the CEO of an antique jewelry company called Fred Layton. The gig only lasted about a year, though. His role was axed after the company did some reorganization.

It's not totally clear what he's up to these days, but he seems to be having a good time, at least according to his public Instagram. He's posted photos from New York fashion shows, symphonies, and book signings. Honestly, he looks like a fun hang. Unfortunately for him, he still has to deal with seeing Martha on magazine covers. ♪

Sarah, I feel like this episode made you hate Martha more, which I kind of thought would happen, but not at the severity that it has. Yeah, big time. And it's not even necessarily tied to her crimes. It's such a symbol of how gross celebrity culture is and can be, especially if, you know, you're a beautiful white woman.

Yeah. The funny thing about the Martha stuff is she kind of became like a weird martyr, but she definitely did something wrong. She didn't have to serve very much time for it. Her life improved. I mean, I wonder what her business would have looked like had this not happened to her. Like, what would she have to show for it? Yeah, this was like one of the best things that happened for her career. You know, it was becoming stale and going to prison and

It made people look at her in a totally different way and just even, you know, pay more attention to her as someone who represents this very traditional way of living and, you know,

She ran with that. I feel like you have a lot of thoughts about Martha choosing to align herself with like Black artists after she gets out of jail. Like there's something like she thinks it's funny, but she also thinks it's like sexy to her old audience and she's getting in a new one. There's so much to unpack, but I will focus on this one thing. It's this idea of aren't Black people and Black men and rappers so scary? And I

me, this little old white lady who teaches you how to fold napkins, found some common ground with Snoop Dogg. And it's because I went to prison. You know, it just kind of goes back to this whole thing of her being able to leverage this in part because she's such a smart businesswoman. Like, of course she is, but also she's a white woman and it's funny and it's cute. And that's

And that just doesn't happen to anyone who not only is not white, but anyone who is poor or, you know, not Martha Stewart or famous. And it's just like, it's so crazy to me that

Everyone made it seem like she did nothing wrong. No, she definitely did. Yeah. And, you know, if she really learned anything in prison, she hasn't translated that into anything broader outside of herself and ways to make money. Like, I don't see her being a lifelong advocate of, you know, prison reform or abolition or people who are wrongfully accused or anything. She saw a way to make money and that's all she went for.

I feel like the thing people miss about Martha is also she didn't actually go away because of insider trading. She went away because she was lying to federal investigators. And like the drug that Sam was trying to develop was actually effective and successful. And this is a story about people who are just impatient. They think they're entitled to like legs up across the board, that they should be able to say what they want and do what they want.

And again, it's like they just thought they were smarter than everybody. They thought they could game the system. It's so lousy. Yeah, I mean, rich people exist in a world that we don't. And they get away with so many things that people get in trouble for. And I think the biggest injustice to them was that, you know, this kind of deception leaked into the normal, regular world.

It's like, wait a second. Normal people don't understand. We do this shit all the time. Why are we getting caught right now? Wow, Sarah. This has been a crack-a-lackin' conversation. That's all I have to say, you know?

This is Martha Stewart, The Homemaker Hustler Part 2. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencersatwondery.com. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were The Comeback That Wasn't by Benjamin Wallace and Sam Waxel Was Right All Along by Robert Kohl.

Our senior producer, Jen Swan, wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Sarah Enni is our story editor and producer, and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact-checking by Will Tavlin. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frees on Sync.

Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock and our managing producer is Matt Gant. Janine Cornelow and Stephanie Jens are development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty. For Wondery. Wondery.

If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.