Don't Mess with the Big Dog: Martha Stewart

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. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zion, Elizabeth Dutton zelling.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Good to see you.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
How are you? Oh, I'm doing okay. How about you?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
I'm feeling good, nice, doing.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, getting ready for the holidays.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I am dam How about you?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh I'm super excited.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Are do you celebrate Toyota thun?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh? My god, Happy Hondred days to you?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I mean, do you remember when it was, you know,
before it was woke to say these things or anti woke.
I don't even know which way that goes.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Look, all I want is for everyone to have a
December to remember.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, you can't even celebrate a wintertime sales event without
some people trying to like poopoo it well and.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
You say something like doorbusters and everyone gets upset with
you like it's bad word.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Have a Lexus December to remember, right?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
You know, Bogo, you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I do, Elizabeth. In fact, you know, as I mentioned
the holidays, I've been trying to do something that's very
difficult and ridiculously difficult in fact, which is Christmas shop.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
For you for me?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, so I just sent you what I was looking
at online to get and.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
It text mess you know.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's also ridiculous. There is a distinct lack of law
and order fan art on Betsy.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
How much do I need it?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So that's the best I came up with.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Can I have that for Christmas? Santa?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
You are interested in that? Okay? So that is a
fan art watercolor of Jerry Orbach.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I mean, are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
But I didn't have any options like that. One's really good.
Like I'm really I'm a fan of the artist and
what they did with that. But I was looking. I
was expecting to be a bunch like all kinds of
watercolors and a crylics to choose from. But no, I'm like,
war is my fan art.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
That I'm obsessed with? Bad fan art?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:45):
And like I think you get the most quality ones
with either Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (01:51):
I don't know, But there's are the ones.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
That just noticed.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
A lot of people want to drawm and nobody can.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
A lot of drawing for memory.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, it's incredible the fan art I love that. I'm
the worst to buy gifts.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
For ridiculously, hard ridiculously because if I.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Want something, I just go get it. Yeah, I don't,
and I don't like asking people for things, and I
don't like people giving me things out of obligation, Like
so just we'll get you something, and then it's just
something where I'm like, what do I do with this?
I have too much stuff already, so.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
There'll be no surprise this year. That's what you're kidding.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
I love it. I love not. I got to get
you something, don't.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
I've got way too much stuff and I sell most
of it.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Oh see now, and then you accuse me.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
No, I'm kidding entirely. Please get me something. If you don't,
I don't know what's going to be have of our
friendship on my.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
List, I've got you Dave Admiral iHeart.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh yeah, he.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Is horrible to buy for, very difficult because you have
to spend like a minimum of fifteen thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
It's got one of everything, so I.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Just steal stuff. I don't have that.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Kind of send him an AI gift.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Oh you know what, I think? I've or a cameo.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Cameo?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Do you think are the boy we love to hate?
George Santos is still doing cameos?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I sincerely dot it, but then again he may needed
still to pay for back as legal costs. I have
no idea how his finances are life or just like
get on his feet money.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Maybe everybody gets a cameo of some sort this Christmas.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Please pick somebody else from me?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh? Please?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
All I can tell you is it's a good thing.
M This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and

(03:48):
outrageous capers. His cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder
free and one ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Damn right.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
You know how I have that list of celebrities that
I'd like to be friends with.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I was unaware of that, but I like knowing that
about you.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Think about how I think I've mentioned you.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Do you have an even unofficial and I like to
think scroll No.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
I don't have it written down wall. You know Courtney Love,
she made a list of what she wanted in life
when she was like pre fame, and one of the
things on the list was to be friends with Michael Stipe.
And then she made that come true.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
You can see what you can be.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
They're good buddies. I love that. So if you could
be pals with four celebrities. Who would you pick?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Living or dead? Sar, I don't mind being friends with
dead people. Yeah, living, Okay, so I'm not adding to
my ghost friend ghost friendship. Okay, four people, four that's
that's difficult, all right. So I'm gonna go with uh
Jack White from the White Stripes. I think I pick him.

(04:57):
Willie Nelson. I already interviewed him, so that was fine.
I think we would hit it off. We had a
good time, good chat on the bus. I'm probably gonna
go with I mean, this is difficult because like some
of my favorites have passed, so hmmm, Eric Abadoo, because
I think just because I want to add a little

(05:17):
spice to my life, and she would be like she
had she has like new theories for me to consider
things I never ever thought of. I like that and
like novelty of like especially well thought out stuff.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
And then probably Fiona Apple. I really like her and
the court watching. She and I could court watch and
talk about it. That's a good one. She's legit, you know.
So there you go off off the top of the dome.
That's my list all musicians.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
It is interesting because like you asked me and I
just started thinking of people who were like make me happy,
whereas some challenge obviously Erica Bete would challenge my belief systems.
But they're like, you know, I there are some living
scientists who I would like to hang out with. There
are some great noble states women and men who'd like
to hang out with. But you asked me like who
I want his friends? I don't know if I want them,

(06:02):
like having to call me for the holidays, and I'm like, no,
I can't come over.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Meet for lunch type thing, exactly. I My list is
like ever shifting, and I.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Think Terrence Taule, the mathematician, it would be really just
he's a cool guy. But I don't know what kind
of friend he'd be. I mean, like, is he gonna
want to like chat, you'd be like sending me one
word answers in text I don't need exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
He's a little busy. So my likes my list, You're
mine shifts all the time. And Eric Abodu is on
my list because I think she'd be so interesting but
also really funny.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, it's totally funny and smart and you have similar
senses of humor.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Right now, Seth Rogan I think would be cool.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
That's a good one.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
He's got like an interesting aesthetic and and it'd be
fun just to hang out with art historian Ben door Grosner.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Oh my god, you love him.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
He's one of my favorites.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
You mentioned him the other day and he entered my dream.
I was like, Bendor, what are you doing here?

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Here's the thing, like the world is too much for me,
and when I need to escape it and go to
a really calm place that is not centered in where
we are right now. Bendor has these art shows like
on you know, British television.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Style.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, and so you know, and he investigates old paintings
and restores them and then like does like you know,
figures out the mysteries of them and who's actually painted.
And he's really he's smart and interesting. And then Ina Garten.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Of course, yeah, I love Flower Sister.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
She read her own audiobook and you can kind of
hear when she's getting tired at the end of chapters
and she begins to elide more and more words like
I do.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Just like.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
She lives the greatest life. Her husband adores her and
she him. They have a partnership. She has a Paris apartment.
She's had a successful business hit cooking and entertainment shows.
I love her cookbooks. But I learned something in her memoir.
She had a brush with the Big Dog, which one.

(08:04):
They operate in the same sphere, but in very different ways,
she and Tyler Perry. And I'm going to talk about
that big dog today.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Oh big dog, the big dog going to walk us all.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Sometimes we're sympathetic to the crimeers on here, sure, other
times were not. I believe in punching up, not down. Yeah,
And so when criminals go after everyday people, it really
chaps my cheeks, Saren. But when criminals go after fat cats,
I love it. And what about rich on rich crime?

(08:37):
And what of rich people who are being made an
example when their compatriots do even more brazen crime?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Oh yeah, the fairness scales.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, I got one for you today, The Big Dog.
Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Oh why we never come? Would you consider.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
I get down with Martha?

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, girl, Martha, finally get pay or we back.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
My mom is kind of like foul mouthed Martha Stewart.
But we used to have this running joke is that
she would come up with some sort of project or
make something you know, food wise or decorative things, and
then guaranteed like the next issue of Martha Stewart Living
would have it like on the cover. She was you know,

(09:21):
Martha was Yeah, Martha was tapping the phones finger on
the pulse together exactly exactly. There was a time in
her early days when her whole thing was like making
things look elegant and gracious without spending a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, I kind of remember this.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, and a lot of like entertaining hacks. Of course
that morphed over the years, but she started out more
attached to her humble roots. She was born Martha Helen
Costira in nineteen forty one in Jersey City, New Jersey.
She was the second of six kids. Her parents, Edward
and Martha, were school teachers.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Because she's a bridge and tunnel girl.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
She is. Her dad later became a pharmaceutical salesman. It
was a good Polish American family, I was wondering, Yeah, yeah,
So the family they moved when Martha was young to Nutley,
New Jersey, and that's where she was raised and from
a young age she learned domestic skills, cooking, sewing like
canning and preserving under the tutelage of her mother and

(10:20):
also when they would go to a buffalo to visit
her grandparents and so and like her dad loved gardening,
and so his passion and his vision guided her in
that through her life and her career in high school,
strong student, smart, smart gal, she got a partial scholarship
to Barnard College, and to help pay tuition, she did

(10:41):
commercial modeling work. So she like print and commercials and
she even did one for like Chanel. Yeah, so at
Barnard she wanted to study chemistry, but eventually she switched
majors to art, European history and architectural history, and those
are super fascinating, that are like tempting, but unless you're

(11:02):
from a rich family that has all sorts of connections
these days, they'll be super tough to get a career in.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
But honestly, you know, she's a little bit older than
this question would really apply. But it seems like most
people do not have a job in their major like this.
It's kind of like no longer the case. So people
don't have specialized things, right obviously, saving the sciences, I guess,
and some things are you know, mathematician, but a lot
of people that get a degree and they end up
doing a lot of doing a lot.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Of other things. Yeah, and so I mean you could
see where that could you know, would apply or as
they used to say in the old insulting days, she
was getting an mrs degree.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Oh busy. She was looking for her.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Husband, and she found one. While she was in college.
She met Andrew Stewart, a Yale law student. They married
in nineteen sixty one, and she paused her studies, but
then she later went back and finished and got her degree,
and they had one child, Alexis Stuart, and she was
born in nineteen sixty five. But she wasn't at Barnard

(11:58):
for an mrs. I mean it's women's college, but they
aren't sequestered anyway. After college, she worked as a stockbroker,
beginning in nineteen sixty seven. That's pretty big impressive. So yeah,
she's not getting a job within her major. The stock
market downturn in nineteen seventy three, though, influenced her decision
to pivot away.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Stagflation.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
This isn't working for me, So she and her husband
they moved to Westport, Connecticut, and they bought and started
to restore this historic farmhouse called Turkey Hill, and they'd
heard about it that it was on sale. It had
around two acres. It was advertised as having quote deep
loamy soil, huge, huge trees, but like not a whole

(12:42):
lot else, like no, not really out buildings, no driveway,
no barn, no vistas. So they closed on the property
in nineteen seventy one for forty six thousand, seven hundred
and fifty dollars. Now that's almost three hundred and seventy
four thousand dollars today, But real estate inflation is different
from standard.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
In calculation, I imagine.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
So anyway, the housing market everywhere is basically obscene, That's
what I'm trying to say. So Turkey Hill, Turkey Hill
was originally built in eighteen oh five, and it had
served as an onion farm and area. Yeah, and then
it was rented out for for years and years, and
then they bought it. And she described the house as

(13:25):
having quote good bones, like really nice windows and wide
plank floors, seven fireplaces, but it was totally neglected.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
That sounds like it's pretty big, yeah, less like one
in every single room.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, when they bought it, there were no usable bathrooms.
The kitchen did and work basement was all damp. Oh yeah,
So she and her husband, they did most of the
work themselves. In the early years, they got a lot
of antiques and you know, tried to keep it period appropriate.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
And that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
So we're talking colonial, yeah and so, and don't forget
she studied like architectural history. So she wrote that the
experience quote gave her an appreciation of the old and antique.
The materials and methods used in our house's construction had
withstood the ravages of time better than any new house
ever would point good point. So the property and the

(14:21):
restoration process that became kind of like this show piece
for her tastes and her style. In nineteen seventy five,
they bought the two acre parcel next door. So now
they've got four acres, they've got this house. They're just
like fixing up, fixing up. They did all this like
excavation and kind of sculpted the land so they had

(14:41):
vistas now, like beautiful vistas.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Of the car.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, basically, and they built a barn, a chicken coop,
a garden shed like a garage, a free standing garage,
and then they put in an orchard, a vegetable garden,
a cutting garden, a greenhouse. The chicken coop, by the way,
she ca called La Pelais des poule the Palace of Chicken.
So they put in like stone walls out on the

(15:07):
property and Trellis's yeah, yeah, and so it was just
it was really really beautiful. And so by the mid
seventies she starts really leaning into like domestic and entertaining work.
In nineteen seventy six, she launched a catering business and
she ran it out of the newly refurbished basement at

(15:27):
Turkey Hill. Yeah. So Martha described Turkey Hill as, quote
my original farmhouse and my first laboratory. The home and
gardens look amazing. It taught us, it nurtured us, it
fed us. I would not be who I am today
without the vast knowledge I gained there. So that basement
catering company took off. Quote, in only ten years, her

(15:50):
basement business had become a million dollar enterprise. She's raking
it in. So she's got all these corporate clients, all
these socialites. She had this real like flare for presentation
and focus on seasonal menus, attention to detail. She's just
like growing, growing, growing the business yeah, and that catering
business took her into contact with all these affluent people

(16:13):
and the publishing world. So she catered a book release
party for her husband's business, and the head of Crown
Publishing noticed her and the catering, and that led to
her first cookbook deal.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
He's like, do you want to do a cookbook?

Speaker 3 (16:27):
This is incredible, This is incredible. So she writes this
book Entertaining that came out in nineteen eighty two, and
that took directly from like all of her catering experience.
So she had menus, recipes, party designs, and then it
also launched like her whole media lifestyle empire because it
was more than just a cookbook. There were like three
hundred recipes, hundreds of full color photographs and then it

(16:50):
but she kind of revolutionized the way that people entertain.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Okay, so it became like an aspirational touchdown.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah, and showing like how this is how you make
a beautiful table scape with not so much. So she
got this business chugging along. She's focusing on high end
entertaining catering for rich people in like the New York
Connecticut corridor. Now she's got a book, develops her esthetic,
and so she then is basically creating a brand. That

(17:16):
book Entertaining was immediately seen as iconic. Bonapetite notes it
was a quote catalog of her catering feats and it
remains influential. So throughout the eighties she released additional lifestyle
and cookbooks. She worked as food and entertaining editor and
columnist for House Beautiful other magazines, and then so everyone's

(17:36):
just kind of seeing her as like this authority in
the domestic arts.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I Got you.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
In July of nineteen eighty six, Martha signed a contract
with Kmart.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Did not see that coming, No, it was a real
coup though.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Kmart introduced a Martha Stewart line of entertainment and lifestyle
products and they put her name on stuff sold at
a discount chain, and so that is like it went
counter to what people thought was be aspirational, but it
really is bringing it to the masses, and it was
like they people say that was probably one of her
smartest decisions.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Really.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, So they have this massive advertising and catalog distribution.
They put her picture and her name in like millions
of households overnight. So suddenly she's accessible and she's not
just for the fancy set. In fact, she wants everyone
to be able to be part of the fancy set.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
So she's like becoming the Jordan of entertaining, where she
does one thing nobody else has done the same, and
all of a sudden, everyone's.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Like, oh, think of this exactly exactly she goes to
the masses. Right, So, at first Camart was just selling
soft home goods that means like towels and bedding, but
then they expand into like bath fixtures, paint, window treatments,
garden stuff, and so this licensing endorsement model that she's
this like taste maker for affordable home products becomes the

(18:56):
core pillar of what is called her omnimedia strategy.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
So, meanwhile, her marriage falls apart. She gets divorced in
nineteen ninety. But that same year, Time incorporateds new unit.
Time Publishing Ventures tested Martha's idea for a magazine centered
on her homemaking and entertaining philosophy. So the first test
slash preview issue of Martha Stewart Living came out in

(19:23):
late nineteen ninety so a winter holiday issue. So the
strong public response. Time Incorporated sees it and they're like,
you know what, we're going to do a bunch of
easy year like this. This isn't just going to be
a one off, and people are eating it up. So
then they went quarterly, then they shifted to monthly by
the mid nineties. That's Martha Stewart living.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Okay, So now you're catching up to where I know
her as an experience.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Right, and she's the editor in chief. She's like the
on page personality model. Yeah, always the cover model.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
She she taught to do that right percent.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
And she'd like blend her image and her voice with
like service journalism about cooking and decorating gardening crafts. And
it's about that time that she developed her catchphrase, it's
a good thing, all right.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
I like Ina Garten's catchphrase. How easy is that? Anyway?

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Martha.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
So nineteen ninety four, the company launched Martha Stewart Weddings
as an annual special issue, and they made that quarterly
in nineteen ninety nine. She knew the money was in
the wedding industrial complex. In nineteen ninety three, dock Broker
Mind Yeah Group w Production signed with Martha to produce
a weekly, half hour syndicated television show called Martha Stewart Living,

(20:42):
and it was going to cross promote the magazine and
all her other stuff. So it expanded to week days
in ninety seven and then became an hour long daily
format in nineteen ninety nine with a shorter weekend version.
She's just all over the airways.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
That's what I really remember it coming out here.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, And it was like it was a relatively
novel thing, this kind of magazine TV synergy model. They
promoted the magazine kmart products ad buyers could reach audiences
across TV in print in like one Martha brand. She
wanted more control and she wanted the upside from this

(21:19):
growing portfolio of media.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
So her contract with Time gave her national exposure, but
it wasn't really lucrative for her personally. So in nineteen
ninety seven, she bought back the rights to Martha Stewart
Living magazine from Time. Warner consolidated her ventures so books, magazines,
TV merchandising into one company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia MSLO.

(21:46):
Let's take a break here. When we come back, we're
going to dive into Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. It's a
good thing. Ad breaks, How easy is that.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Dude. I'm loving this Martha Stewart thing because it's making me.
I have a friend, Chelsea Fagan. She's got a new
book out called Happing People Over and it's basically a
very Martha Stewart inspired thing, and she's doing basically it's
like a you know, elder millennial take on the Martha
Stewart brand if you will. Yeah, and this is reminding him.
I'm like, dude, I didn't even realize that she's been

(22:35):
following this pattern for a while. But Martha Stewart is
a hell of a trailblazer. I mean, if you got
Oprah and my friend Chelsea Fagan both following you, you
got something strong going on. It's multi generational, it's multicultural.
But she's just like everyone's like that is like, you know,
it's like not like oh, Moses on the mountaintop, but
like she's getting people a path.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
To follow, oh completely completely, And you'll see how that
rings out. So Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was structured around
all of these various business segments. So you got publishing
and that's Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings, all of
her various books, special issues that would come out, like
her Halloween edition was always a big deal. Decorations, yeah,

(23:19):
newspaper columns so yeah, and there'd be like a holiday
cooking one. Then there was broadcasting, and that's so we
have the syndicated Martha Stewart Living TV show plus all
these radio segments. Then we get internet direct commerce, so
that's Marthastewart dot Com, the Martha by Mail catalog. Those
both came out in the late nineties as like direct

(23:39):
to consumers. Yeah. And then lastly we have the merchandising,
so you have the Kmart Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Every Day line, like Martha Stewart branded cookie roller.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah. And then she just continues to get all these
retail partnerships with all these groups. So this integrated model,
so it was content driving product sales and vice versa
was central to this business proposition. And Harvard Business School
did case studies on this.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
I bet they did just.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
That it's like this sweet spot perfect method.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
She's really kind of brilliant. The more you're reminding me,
I didn't realize like one, just the steps, but also
the spread the scope.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, and you think too that she comes from like
this humble beginning. She is savvy. She is savvy, and so.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
She she also knows both the upside of like oh,
quaint colonial living, but also Jersey City.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
She knows both inherently exactly. So MSLO was a beast,
and that beast went public on the New York Stock
Exchange on October nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine. So the IPO
was priced at eighteen dollars a share, but the stock
quickly traded up to around thirty eight dollars, tripling basically
the issue price. In today, the company's post IPO valuation

(24:53):
was reported at approximately one point eight to two billion,
and because Martha retained like six sixty percent of the shares,
she became, on paper, the first self made female billionaire
in the United States.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Wow. And you don't normally hear me say anything wow
about a billionaire, but yeah, wow, wow. I bet you
made a lot or bought a lot of boats for
a lot of.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Stockbrokers, And yes, you will find out. You'd think that
the merchandising would be the driving force beneath her wealth,
but no. According to the company's nineteen ninety nine annual report,
publishing was the largest segment.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
That is surprising yet.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Generated around one hundred and forty five million dollars and
accounted for sixty three percent of total revenue.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
That's very surprising. Back in publishing made money apparently.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah, do you remember magazines?

Speaker 2 (25:40):
I loved them, Elizabeth, Oh my, I'm sad that they're gone. Largely.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
I worked at one Jones I subscribed. I used to
subscribe to.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
So many two subscriptions.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
I think I would pore over them. I went to
newsstands to check out new ones.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
I love buying them from newstands. Then you see international
ones you don't even know. You just buy. Could you
like to Pictures?

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (26:00):
And I never flew without buying a couple of magazines
at the airport. So like, I still get some magazines
I get like Sunset and Bone Appetite and like Cooks Illustrated.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, I get like New Scientists, Rolling Stone.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I missed like Spin used to be so good.
I'm mourn. I mourn magazines back to Martha.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
So.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
By the early two thousands, mslo's revenues were in the
hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with external analyzes sighting
around three hundred million in revenue. By two thousand and one.
What's that today? Today, Elizabeth nearly five hundred and fifty
million dollars.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
I'll take it.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Big dog. Martha is the big dog. And you know
she had all these these TV shows. And that's where
Aina intersected. Okay, she originally was going to bring Aina
into the fold, but Aina liked it a little bit
more casual.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Was just about to say, was it a fashion conflict
where she's like, could you get dressed up? I'm not
giving up my linens.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
No, no, no, it wasn't a fashion thing at all.
It was like Martha had a very strict kind of juggernaut,
like there's a reason why she has built this success.
It's very structure.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
You have to subsume your thing to her thing in
a sense, like do it her way, even though and
if you still do your thing.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
I watched AA like it's a little message. Well, think
about Julia Child used to drop stuff is more like that,
and she also likes to jug up store bought stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And Martha is very like but not delivery in terms
of like how it looks.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it just wasn't a good match.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
I could see that a good match too. Many like
tomato stands exactly.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
So soon though the MSLO stocks struggled, you know, the
the revenues weren't two thousand and one revenues weren't going
to bleed into two thousand and two. There was that
nine to eleven slump that the economy face, and that
early dot com crash exactly. You have all those So
these market conditions, these external pressures are all mounting. Martha

(28:00):
kept majority voting control ninety six percent through a dual
class share structure, and so she had like dominant influence
over direction of the whole thing. She expanded into new
product categories, so like not just home decor, but at
home furnishings, furniture, wallpaper, flooring. She had a wine brand,

(28:22):
Martha Stewart Vintage, which was a partnership with Gallo.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Did not see that she always surprises her brand gave
you if you spotted me seventeen guests. I would no.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
No. Her brand licensing model licensed the Martha Stewart name
to third parties for product lines, so it would like
scale revenue, but they didn't always own manufacturing. That's a
little dicey.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, that's a risk. Yeah, so your name on something,
the quality suffers right right.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
So here we have Martha top of the world raking
it in. Enter Sam Waxaw.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Okay, should I know that name?

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Uh? No, not necessarily. He was born in nineteen forty
seven in Paris to a Jewish couple who were Holocaust survivors,
and the family later immigrated to the United States. He
got his bachelor's in nineteen sixty nine and then a
PhD in immunobiology in nineteen seventy four from Ohio State.
He did his doctoral studies and then he worked in

(29:22):
these research positions like National Cancer Institute, Stanford Mount Sinai
in immunology and molecular biology. Okay, great who cares? In
nineteen eighty four, Waxaw founded m Clone Systems. Originally it
was like this startup focused on immunology, DNA cloning, medical

(29:42):
information systems, but they had this aim of developing biologic medicines,
particularly for oncology, and so under Waxall's leadership, m Clone
partnered with major pharmaceutical firms and developed the monoclonal antibody
drug candidate erbitux for cancer treatment. At its peak, m

(30:06):
Clone looked like this rising star in biotech, and Waxaw
he cultivated this lavish personal lifestyle. So we had art
collections and he was traveling in all these social circles,
well known figure in the industry. Okay, great, who cares.
What's this got to do with Martha? Bring back to
m Clone's future. Hinged on FDA approval of erbitux, and

(30:31):
in late two thousand and one, m Clone submitted a
biologics license Application BLA to the Food and Drug Administration.
The market knew that an FDA decision was coming an
in Clone stock, like the price reflected all these high
expectations that people had.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Of course, it is just going to be it's swelling ony. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
On the evening of December twenty sixth, two thousand and one,
the FDA told m Clone that it would issue a
refusal to RTF letter, meaning it would not even accept
their application for review.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
WHOA, why wow, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
It's devastating news that had not been made public yet.
So waxall he hears about this impending RTF, he tells
his family members, and then he tries to sell his
own in Clone stock before the bad news hits the market.
That's what we call insider trader.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
That's deep insider trading. You're trying to sell your own shares,
that is your family.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Really, So his family dumped over ten million dollars in
in Clone stock between December twenty seventh and twenty eighth,
two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
What's fast.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, Waxall himself tried to sell about five million, but
it got blocked by brokers.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
I was gonna say, I mean, you're going to start
the market's going to notice this, even if it's the holidays,
the market's going to notice that much.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Movie totally. Martha Stewart owned three nine hundred and twenty
eight shares of m Clone through her personal account at
Mery Lynch and Waxaw was a quote close friend of Stuart,
and Martha had invested in it as like this gesture
of support for her friend. So like she, she and
Waxall they moved in the same elite social circles in

(32:11):
New York appreciate the thing. And creepily enough, Waxall dated
Martha's daughter Alexis for several years prior to all this.
Oh yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
So Marylynd she would have been his step his mother
in law.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah okay, yeah, So Martha's broker was this guy Peter Bakanovich,
and his assistant was Douglas Fanuel. They knew all this,
They know everything that's going down. So early on December
twenty seventh, two thousand and one, the morning after he
gets that FDA.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Tip, Yeah, well, his family selling off stock as fast
as you can.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Waxall and his daughter are telling Mary Lynch sell everything
we have. Fanoel dealing with multiple urgent cell orders from
the whole Waxaw family. He calls his boss back in Novich,
who's on vacation in Florida, to report, like all these
like everyone's trying to sell Mclone. Why do you think
that is? And so, according to the SEC's complaint. In

(33:10):
later testimony, Bakanovich told Finul to call Martha and tell
her that the wax Saws were selling or trying to
sell all their in Clone shares at Merrill Lynch.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Like.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
So he's like, give Martha heads up, this is happening, Okay.
Fanul does that, tells Martha that Sam Waxaw and his
daughter dumping their in Clone stock. Martha hears this, she says,
sell all my stuff. If they're selling it, I want
all three nine hundred twenty eight shares December twenty seventh,
two thousand and one. December twenty eighth, after the market closed,

(33:44):
m Clone publicly announced that refusal to file decision for herbitux.
By the closing of trading on December thirty.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
First, okay, the first date is open. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
M clone stock price had dropped about sixteen percent, down
to around forty six dollars a shit. So Martha sold
at fifty eight dollars a share with proceeds of about
two hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars, and so she
got to avoid losses of about forty five thousand when
the stock later fell. In the grand scheme of things,
for Martha, that's not a whole lot.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
That's not even a drop.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
No, for most of us, that would be huge, But
Martha is a billionaire.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, what does she care? So I said, it's not
even a drop. You'd have to put a few of
those together, drup.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yes. So the initial focus of regulators in early two
thousand and two was Sam Waxall and his family and
the SEC and the US Attorney's office. They opened this
investigation into the heavy insider selling an m Clone Just
before the announcement the investigation into wax Saw's tips and
trades led regulators to examine all unusual M Clone sales,

(34:47):
including those of other Merrill Lynch clients like Martha Stewart.
So Merrill Lynch's compliance department reviewed all the in Clone
trades and they noticed that Martha, this high profile client,
had done all her shares the same day that Waxall's
family did. Compliance staff questioned the broker about these trades,

(35:08):
and his initial explanation was that, well, you know, Martha
has a standing order to sell if M Clone falls
below sixty. So Fanil he went along.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
There was a verbal order. We have no paper records
of it.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Fanila goes along with the whole sixty stop loss story
when he's first questioned by Merrill Lynch and the regulators,
but then he later pleaded guilty tolling to investigators and
agreed to cooperate with the government. And once he was cooperating,
he gave a totally different account. He said Bakanovich had
told him to tip Martha that Waxal and his family
selling the shares. He testified there was no pre existing

(35:46):
sixty dollars sell order and that that was concocted after
the facts cover, so investigators they gathered all this documentary evidence.
They subpoenaed Martha's phone and email records as well as
Merrill Lynch records to reconstruct all of her communications around
this trade. And then there was the quote worksheet. So

(36:07):
Bakanovich had a printed worksheet that listed Martha's holdings dated
December twenty first, two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Okay, almost week prior.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
So at the time there was no handwritten note about
the decision to sell in Clone at sixty and according
to the superseding indictment, a note about sixty dollars was
allegedly added after the trade, and so suspicion is raised
that it's fabricated. Correct news accounts said that Finul left
Martha a message saying, Peter Bakanovich thinks in Clone is

(36:40):
going to start trading downward. And then prosecutors said that
Martha later tried to alter or erase evidence of the call,
and so they're like, that's obstruction. She knew what she
was doing. So all of this, the testimony, the worksheet,
the phone records, they the federal government has this narrative
that Martha and are broke her lied to cover up

(37:01):
an improper tip. June fourth, two thousand and three, a
federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted Martha Stewart and Peter
Bakanovich on nine criminal counts.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Nine they squeezed nine out of.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
This conspiracy, obstruction of justice, security frauds, making false statements,
bunch of others. The government said Martha sold her in
clone stock based on the tip and then lied to
the FBI and the SEC. And we know the same
day the SEC filed a civil complaint and said that

(37:34):
Martha and Bakanovich committed securities fraud by engaging in illegal
insider trading and then lying to regulators. Criminal trial that
began January of two thousand and four in the Southern
District of New York, there was this judge, Miriam Goldman
Cedar Bamby. That's right. The prosecution's core story was about

(37:55):
this conspiracy between Martha and her broker, Douglas Finul star witness.
He testifies that you know everything that had been laid out.
He said that he told Martha exactly what was going down,
and she was like, sell it. And we know that
Martha and Bakanovich both told investigators that they had previously

(38:16):
agreed to sell if it fell below sixty. Government, you know,
shows that that's totally false. February twenty seventh, two thousand
and four, Judge Cedarbaum dismissed the main securities fraud count
saying that no reasonable jury could find beyond a reasonable
doubt that Martha lied for the purpose of manipulating the
stock price of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Oh, I can see that, Yeah, reasonable right.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
March fifth, two thousand and four, after three days of deliberations,
the jury found Martha Stewart guilty on four counts conspiracy,
obstruction of justice, and then two counts of making false
statements to federal investigators. Line to the FBI is something
you never ever do. Importantly, she was not convicted of
insider trading itself, so her you know that that.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
She was clear on basically busted for the cover up.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, completely busted for the cover.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Up every time. Evidence all abounds.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yeah. In July sixteenth, two thousand and four, Martha and
Bakanovich were each sentenced to five months in prison, five
months of home confinement, two years probation, and then Martha
got a thirty thousand dollars fine and Bakanovic got four thousand,
So I have a bone to pick about that. If
the broker kicked it all off, Yeah, how is he

(39:34):
paying a larger fund?

Speaker 2 (39:35):
It does seem disproportionate in terms of justice anyway.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
So in connection with that scandal, Martha resigned as CEO
and chair of MSLO on the day that she was indicted,
and then she later resigned from its board as well
as from outside boards like the New York Stock Exchange.
Her TV show, Martha Stewart Living was pulled from a
bunch of Cbsupan affiliates and then went on hiatus. Let's

(40:00):
take a break. We know she's going inside. She's going
to do some time. Let's have one last ad break
before we go inside with her. Zeron Elizabeth, it's a

(40:31):
good thing.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Have you ever thought about having your own media empire
based on your lifestyle brand?

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Oh? Yeah, it'd be great.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
I think you could do pretty well. But you're honestly
you ever thought of that?

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Eron lifestime?

Speaker 2 (40:44):
My lifestyle brand is already covered by a number of
motorcycles and surfboard companies. They have it done on Instagram
to like a whole thing, an aesthetic that's easily replicated.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
You could be, you could be I lost my.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Moment unless we added like black cowboys to make it unique.
It's something they they don't have. They're like, well, we
had never thought about making it black and western. That's
about the only thing I got at this point. And
that's just a tough cell. You know. Putting surfing, motorcycling,
and black cowboys together as an esthetic.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
I think that's it. I think that's what the people
want anyway.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
But what about you. You actually could do this, but
the gardening, the cooking, and the entertaining.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Getting like easily frazzled.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Getting easily frazzled coming it, I think, so.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yelling at dogs while you're trying to do stuff.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yes, like how to entertain when dogs were at your feet?

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Maybe maybe we'll think about that. So Martha, she went
to trial. She got convicted, so we know that, we
know that happened. She had to walk away from the
leadership at MSLO and she had to do time. And
this was such a huge story at the time. I
remember this, it was like it was unbelievable. You have
this iconic domestic powerhouse media personality is going to prison.

(41:54):
So outside the courthouse following her senses the.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Nights like the nighttime talk show out on Oh.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, yeah, they went nuts. Martha told the press quote,
I'll be back, I'll be back. I'm used to all
kinds of hard work, as you know, and I'm not afraid.
I'm not afraid whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Good for her.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
Yeah, So a lot of people noted at the time
that there were plenty of examples of folks who did
exactly what she did and didn't get busted. Oh yeah,
And there seemed to be a public split on Martha.
So either people were glad to see her taken down
a notch or they felt that she was being targeted
for being a successful woman.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Do you remember at the time you felt.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, I thought she was being targeted for.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
I mean I think like it you see, like when
you have like an absolute like business tycoon. You know,
Martha was portrayed as being very cold and harsh, and
that's seen as a negative, whereas like you know, male
business tycoons, when you have that kind of cutthroat, driven, harsh,

(42:58):
they're driven. Yeah, and so it's like like, you know,
those same kind of qualities don't translate and she, you know,
it was kind of diminished all the time of being
just she you know, she makes pretty things on TV,
but she was this incredible business person.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, Like I didn't know she was a stockbroker. I
knew about the model part which they pushed, they did
not really plus the stockbroker part.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
I learned that from you and so she. You know.
I just remember thinking at the time, like I just
felt it was kind of unfair. But at the same time,
it also is like rich people problems.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
That's what I was curiously, would your punk rock show up?
It seems like rich people problem, most.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
People problems, and especially like we keep saying that for
her avoiding a forty five thousand dollars loss, like come on, anyway.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Does almost look cheap like she's trying to do what
I mean, Like that also doesn't add exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
So October eighth, two thousand and four, Martha reported to
the federal prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia. And this
place had the nickname Camp Cupcake because it was a
minimum security women's prison.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, that's been low that is like when you hear
a camp that's I guess the softest the lowest security prisons.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Still prison is still so on her first day, she
had the customary strip search and they made her squat
with her arms out and cough.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
There you go, still like this.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Is humiliating completely, yeah, and so she missed her life out.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
So that's what they do in a women's facility is
squat and cough to turn your head and coughs.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Squat and cough. She's missing everything obviously of her life,
you know, particularly her animals, because she had a bunch
of dogs. The quality of the food was something that
she found upsetting, of course, but it wasn't just for her,
but it was just like the poor nutrition that it
provided everyone. She's just like, this is this is like

(44:46):
pure carbohydrates and like it's not anyway.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
This is stick to your ribs food.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
This is not going to give you digestive issues and just.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Like simple carbs and fibers exactly.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
And so she, like the other inmates, slept on a
crappy old mattress in an old metal bunk bed in
her cell. It was dismal.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Can you imagine just for a second, Martha trying to
like cheer up her place, like making some ruffling like
very pristine taking hard to get into a picture frames.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Exactly, but you know she's Martha. Yeah, and that's a
good thing. A few weeks after she went inside, she
released a statement via her website. She put on a
brave face quote, The camp is fine. It's pretty much
what I anticipated the best news. Everyone is nice, both
the officials and my fellow inmates. I've adjusted, and I'm
very busy. The camp is like an old fashioned college

(45:39):
campus without the freedom, of course. But see, Zaren, people
weren't always nice. Oh close your eye, Oh, I want
you to picture. You are an inmate at Federal Prison
Camp Alderson, aka Camp Cupcake. You are in prison for

(46:01):
mail fraud. You got caught up in an MLM and
there were checks involved, and it got very confusing, and
you knew you were doing something not right, but you
never imagined it would land you behind bars. It's a beautiful,
unseasonably warm, early spring day. You're a trustee, meaning you
do jobs around the prison that allow you all sorts
of access. You take paper files from one office to another,

(46:25):
You help do light maintenance, and sometimes you work in
the laundry. That's where you were able to meet Martha Stewart.
You were shocked by how kind and serene she was
very personable and chatty. Pretty soon you didn't even think
of her as famous. She was as Martha. Today, you're
mopping a wide hallway. Heavy doors buzz open, some guards

(46:46):
stride pasted. You head into wherever they seem to be
constantly going. You are at the intersection of another wide hallway.
You hear a door buzz open, and you see two
sharply dressed administrators come towards you on your right. Their
shoes squeak on the polished cement floors. You know these women.
They aren't very nice. You look to your left when

(47:07):
you catch a figure out of the corner of your eye.
It's Martha. She looks to be headed to her job
at the laundry. As she approaches the administrators, Martha greets
them and mentions what a lovely, warm morning it is.
They don't respond. You slash them up in the bucket.
Martha then tells them they look very nice today. They
don't respond. As they pass each other in the hall,

(47:28):
you see Martha notice the big silver keychain attached to
the hip of the woman closest to her. You don't
know if it's accidental or if Martha was feeling particularly
devilish that day. You've heard her tell some very cutting jokes.
But as she comes even with the woman with the keys,
Martha swings her hand out and slightly brushes it against
the key ring. The women stop in their tracks. Martha

(47:51):
keeps strolling, now gently whistling a tune inmate, Stuart. The
woman with the keys barks, get back here. Martha stops
walking and stops whistling. She turns to look at the women. Yes,
she says to them, you slash the mop in the
bucket again, punctuating the silence. Get over here, she shouts

(48:12):
at Martha. Martha raises an eyebrow and heads back. Yes,
can I help you? She asks, her chin up and
a rye smirk on her face. The woman with the
keys grabs Martha by the upper arm and yanks her
towards her. You touched an officer. You cannot touch an officer,
she says sternly. The other administrator pipes up that solitary

(48:32):
confinement for you. No food, no water, twenty four hours.
I thought this was camp cupcake, Martha mutters, as the
administrators drag her away and buzz themselves through another of
the heavy metal doors. Oh my god, they are putting
Martha in solitary, you think the shoe. No one is
going to believe this, And she didn't really touch the

(48:54):
woman or the keys. You think, man, Martha can't catch
a break. You resume mopping and make a mental note
to give administrators a wide berth when you pass them
in the hall.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Wow, Martha to the shoe, Martha.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Martha's time in solitary really showed her all the facets
of prison life. Like she it was. It was tough,
but like so she had had like these kind of
pleasant experiences of it's a college campus. But then she
realizes the slightest.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Thing, well, the domination and control.

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Exactly so now she sees it in its totality.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
I'm picturing her like in the solitary, like throwing the
ball against the wall like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
And like her time wasn't all bad. Obviously, she kept
a journal while she was there and has written pretty
extensively about it in some of her books. She has
this one book, the Martha Rules. Ten Essentials for Achieving
Success as you start, grow or manage a business.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Oh, I read the original one, Martha's forty eight Rules
of Power. Yes, welcome to the shoe. Sorry God.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
So and there she made this observation quote, it is
no secret that I am accustomed to being in control
of my life and of my company. What became all
to a parent during my confinement was how many many
women are not in control of their lives or what
happens to them. They endure extraordinarily difficult situations, yet remain

(50:22):
very strong, nonetheless, both physically and emotionally. I made it
a priority to really try to understand my fellow inmates,
and they did the same for me. So she goes
in with this open mind. A lot of her fellow
inmates wanted to pick her brain about how she started
MSLO and how do she exploded it into this cash cow.

(50:43):
They wanted to know, how did you accomplish so much.
There was this group of Muslim inmates that approached her
and asked if she would speak at a form on
business practices that they were holding.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
We've got a bakery, we want to know how can
we get this?

Speaker 3 (51:00):
So she she gets permission from the warden to speak
to the you know, to the Muslim group, and she
starts prepping her presentation. And I think step one is
don't trust.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Your stockbroker is definitely good rule.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
So Martha outlined how to develop what she called quote
a big idea, and then how you market it, right
down to all the fine details like internet advertising, all
this stuff. Presentation was a hit, and she stayed way
long afterwards to answer everyone's questions. And it was the
notes for the presentation that later became the Martha Rules

(51:37):
the Book. So while she was inside, Martha got back
into pottery. She learned a crochet. On the day that
she was released from prison March fourth, two thousand and five,
she did her full five months a full bid. She
wore this really intricately crocheted poncho that was made for
her by her new friend and fellow inmate, Shomara her Nandez.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
I think I remember this picture, yeah, picture, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
So she comes out wearing the poncho and she's just like,
uh uh like undeterred of this time. She later wrote quote,
I knew it was time to assess my life again.
During my stay, I had been so fortunate to have
a steady stream of family and friends who visited me.
Believe me, many women in prison are visited by no
one for years. There are many things that I missed

(52:25):
my animals, my homes, fresh food, travel, and the daily
challenges of managing an endlessly interesting business. But there were
just as many wonderful things that I had gathered during
those five months. New friendships, so many ideas, and so
much information and knowledge from fascinating books that I actually
had the time to read. I also gained a new

(52:45):
appreciation for the complexity of every single person's situation.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
I was jumped into the best prison gang. I'm met
somebody who ran the yard, and that was great for
me because I learned how they run a yard as
opposed to how I run my yard.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Tattoos.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I got some skin art done, mostly stick and poke,
but it was really beautiful stuff.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
So Martha got out. She's a new woman, but also
the same old tough Martha.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
August seventh, two thousand and six, the SEC announced a
settlement of its civil case. Under the settlement, Martha paid
back forty five thousand in avoided losses plus twelve thousand
something in interest. She had to pay a civil penalty
of one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars that's three
times the avoided losses. She had to accept a five

(53:32):
year ban on serving as a director of a public company,
and she had to accept a five year limitation on
her role as an officer or employee of a public company,
excluding her from involvement in financial reporting, SEC filings, internal controls,
and related functions. Sure so this is also she settled

(53:52):
without admitting or denying the allegations, which is like typical
for SEC civil settlements. After her prison and home confinement period,
she focused on rebuilding the business, like the credibility of it,
and expanding her brand into new channels. And people welcomed
her back yea, because she wasn't ashamed.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I think she was broken.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Yeah. Yeah, And so she's just like, this is who
I am, this is what I did. Let's let's keep
going interesting.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
People rallied around her. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
So in two thousand and six, MSLO launched new lifestyle
lines and partnerships. They had this multi year agreement with
a company to manufacture and market a line of carpet tiles.
They had a new line of interior paint at Low's,
which replaced a previous paint partner. Around two thousand and seven,
she launched a homewares line at Macy's. So she goes

(54:44):
a step up featuring more than two thousand items. That
was described as the largest brand launch in Macy's history
of the time.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Good for her.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
On the media side, her network extended into satellite radio.
There's a serious XM channel Martha Stewart Living Radio, publishing
and content still played a role. They tested and launched
various magazine titles aimed at younger demographics. So they had
one like Blueprint Design Your Life. In the push into

(55:14):
mass licensing, home goods, paint, blah blah blah. She's leveraging
the Martha name, like beyond everything that has had and
it's trust building for the public. So the new product
lines media ventures. They reframe her as this resilient entrepreneur
rather than like making her purely scandal anker. And we

(55:34):
see that MSLO goes from being a high growth IPO
company into like a more diversified licensing and brand managements.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
And just for the people. It makes her far more real.
She was previously a perfectionist, and now she's gone to
prison and come out and redeemed herself. She can't be
whether she was the ice cream before exactly.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
She's sort of humbled by it, but yet not brought low.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
She's like broad she's been she knows of the people
now right exactly thought ent her farmhouse over there wherever.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
When the van was lifted. September of twenty eleven, she
rejoined the board of MSLO and then May of twenty
twelve she became non executive chair of the company. Again,
their retail like licensing relationships got a little bit of tension.
There was a legal dispute between Macy's and Martha Stewart

(56:25):
Living Omnimedia J C. Penny over who had the exclusive
rights to her home care or her home products. On
the media side, that flagship Martha Stewart Living Magazine and
all the other print publications, you know, they were going
up against the deaths of the magazine industry, you know,

(56:45):
declining subscriptions and ad revenues. Digital media is gaining strengths,
so they have to kind of pivot around there. In
twenty eleven, New York Magazine reported that Martha Stewart Living
Magazine had been profitable only once in the previous eight years.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
A so you know, it was more of like an
advertising arm for the rest of Ust totally.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
And then so they you know, they then lost later, yes,
they'd start leaning more into like the collaborations on stuff
they adapted to online catalog commerce, that kind of stuff.
June twenty second, twenty fifteen, MSLO agreed to be acquired
by Sequential Brands Group for roughly three hundred and fifty
three million dollars. And then on April sixteenth, twenty nineteen,

(57:28):
Sequential Brands agreed to sell MSLO and the Emerald brand,
which I guess they had already picked up to Marquee
Brands for one hundred and seventy five million with additional
contingent payments. So with that acquisition, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
stopped being a publicly traded company. The ticker was delisted.

(57:48):
It became a privately held brand portfolio. Martha retained involvement
basically as brand ambassador. She was not the operating CEO. Okay,
and so from twenty nineteen onward she has focused on
expansion into new product categories like digital stuff all these partnerships.
In twenty twenty five, she went into skincare. Apparently she

(58:11):
has a skincare line now Elm Biosciences targeted for women
of a certain age. She also got amazing plastic surgery
that looks natural. Kids call a glow up.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yeah. I never am able to track that stuff. I
just think if they suddenly just too much their face,
I'm like, they must have.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
No, she just looks amazing, Like she's.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Like got brad Pitt's people where they're like, oh, you
can't really tell. Bradley Cooper's people are like, oh, it's like,
is that very man you pulled too tight?

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yeah, there's like clips on the back of their head.
So she's still all over television and online media. And
then there's her friendship with Snoop.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I was like holding my tongue on that. Yeah, I
figure you hadn't mentioned it yet.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
It starts off In November of two thousand and eight,
Snoop appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and he and
Martha made mashed potatoes together, and then she learned his
vocabulary like phoushizzle. The next year, they reunited on the
show for a holiday episode, making green Brownie.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
That's what I remember.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Yeah. November seventh, twenty sixteen, Martha and Snoop's pot luck
dinner party premiered on VH one.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
She's really leaning into the whole pot thing, right.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yes, exactly, and so they had like celebrity guests themed
dinner parties, and they like fun banter. April third, twenty nineteen,
they launched a spinoff, Martha and Snoop's pot Luck Party Challenge,
where Snoop and Martha competed with celebrity friends and cooking challenges.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I don't remember that, yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
In October of twenty eighteen, Martha wrote the foreword for
Snoop Dogg's cookbook, From Crook to Cook Platinum Recipes from
the Boss Dog's Kitchen.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
Snoop the Cookbook, I had no idea. From Crook to
Cook Platinum Recipes.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Platinum Recipes from the Thha Boston Kitchen twy seconds. Twenty
twenty two, Martha launched the Martha Stewart Podcast, and Snoop
was her first guest.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Of course. I mean now they're branded, yeah this point.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
November twenty twenty three, Martha and Snoop teamed up with
the brand Bick, the lighter company.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yeah about ask Click Click launched.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Its easy reach utility lighters and tapped Martha and Snoop
as like co faces of the campaign, positioning them as
quote best buds who needed safer, longer neck lighters for candles, grills,
and then weed was heavily implied.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Oh, they have so many uses for a long necked bit.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
And then there was Best Buds Bags, which were cross
body bags designed to hold a big, easy reach lighter
and they were promoted as like weed friendly and stylish,
and each one of them designed their own bags.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Are you a Dope Dealer on the go?

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
They've also co hosted and appeared together at a bunch
of different events, the twenty twenty one and twenty twenty
two Puppy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Bowl Oh Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Rival coaches of Team Rough and Team Fluff, and they
appeared throughout the three hour special. They were Halloween themed specials.
There was the Olympics where Martha got snooped to ride
a horse and get super into dressauce that was actually
really that was really funny, and other TV like live
event tie ins. What's Martha doing these days?

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
What is she doing these days? Elizabeth?

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
She's currently co host and executive producer of Yes Chef
on NBC. Never heard of it. It's twelve talented but
hot tempered chefs face off against each other.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yeah. Wait, before before we leave, Snoop, did Snoop ever
get to take Martha to like the hood or like
the cookout or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Seems like he's always doing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Yeah, she's doing the plotlucks with her. Does she ever
like go like Martha at the cookout in Long Beach?

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Maybe?

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Check I wrote my check in.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
I don't know. I don't know. Did she has she
appeared in any videos?

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
I tried my hand at the Magic City recipe for
the wings.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Oh that Magic City Love and Pepper so chef Jose Andres.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Is her guy.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
He's a really good dude. The Martha Stewart Channel is
a free streaming service on Pluto TV. Has over a
thousand episodes just on on a loop. Sure there's you know.
She's also doing the print publication again. Martha Stewart Holidays
is out for twenty twenty five covers Thanksgiving through New Year's.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Kind of boiled her peak seasons.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Yes, exactly so. The Martha Stewart aesthetic, as they call it,
is supposed to be like, according to trend watchers, like
booming this year and into next.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
I could see that because it's like.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
The boho nature based decor slow living.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Yeah, slow living, but also has an error traditionalism without
being conc.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
The gtalgia that the millennials call.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
That is true nostalgia for the early two thousands.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
So Martha, she's involved in real estate design production collaborations.
She's got a housing kit line that uses four home
style models inspired by her own estates in med for at,
East Hampton, New York and Maine. You can buy like
you can buy one of her riffing off of them. Sure,

(01:03:08):
basically Martha's out there living her best life, looking amazing
for her breaking in money. However, I doubt she's as
happy is Ina Garten, and happiness is what really matters.
Is there? What's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
I mean, I hate to limit it to her friendship
with Snoop. You know I know the most about that,
and but I'm okay, you know what, forget that, I'm
skipping that. I'm going to say the ridiculous part is
that her time in prison really made her. It was
one of the few instances of like, oh, it reformed her,
maybe not her personally, but her brand. So at least

(01:03:45):
prison for once worked out and did the thing it's
supposed to do, which is make a person better when
they come out. So that's ridiculous. You didn't think that
prison would make Martha Steward a better person.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
How about that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Exactly? I don't mess with Martha.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
You came in with that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
You just don't mess with the Big Dome with it too.
I'm living with it too. I would love a talkback, actually, Dave.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Oh my god, Suber Hello, Jee.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Hello.

Speaker 4 (01:04:23):
I was listening to an episode a couple of months ago.
I don't remember which one it wasn't it doesn't matter,
but Zaron was saying that he thinks the Fahrenheit's system
is a better system of temperature than Celsius, and I thought, wow,
Zaron seems like a smart man. I'd love to hear
his reasoning for that. Something that makes more sense than

(01:04:44):
zero degrees water freezers, one hundred degrees water boils and
his reason bigger number sound hotter?

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
It is?

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
It is, It is true. It seems more tied to
the human body as opposed to tied to the dimensions
of water, and then what it as different states. So
I'm like, you know, if you tell me that the
like the weather I'm going to be dealing with, Fahrenheit
helps me as a human being, And there's more of
us than than I think sentient water.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
So I just like anything that's not scientific.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Yeah I know that, but trust I'm so you're a
man of science. But theoretically, yeah, i'm a I think
it's great for science. I love the metric system. I
wish I wish we would have taught Americans this so
we weren't these like holdouts with our stupid system. I
think our whole like you continuing use of like whatever,
the royal system, like the foots and pounds and all
this stuff we do. It's silly. I would love to

(01:05:36):
go to the metric system, except for Celsius for whatever reason,
just doesn't work for weather, and that's really when we
talk about temperature for the most part. And for cooking.
I don't know how it would go because I don't cook,
so I really can't tell you, like if three hundred
and fifty degrees it's gonna be better. People use celsius
when you're cooking, or do they do it like British? See,

(01:05:58):
I don't even know. That's how little cooking or reading
of cookbooks I do.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
I just like I like more ballpark measurements, like yay, big.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Yeah, you're all about that at just pinch of this sprinkle.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
If I want to say it's hot, What's what's the temperature? Jubble,
It's really hot and muggy. Okay, I'm that's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram.
We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime. Podda email Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com, leave a talkback on the iHeart

(01:06:32):
Apple reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dunnan
Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Domestic Warlock Dave Cousten
starring and Least Rutgers Judith. Research is by Robin Zig,
Blue Craft Paint enthusiast Marissa Brown and Hot Blue Gunslinger

(01:06:53):
Jabari Davis. The theme song is by Martha's Potato Harvester
Thomas Lee and Turkey Hill in House Quesadilla Cooked Travis Dutton.
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
two guys out of Martha Stewart Wath Building Seminar, Ben
Boleen and Noel Brown.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Redicus Crime Say It One More Time Crime.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.