Martha Stewart Net Worth

How much is Martha Stewart worth?

About Martha Stewart

Martha Helen Stewart was born on August 3, 1941 and is an American retail businesswoman, writer, and television personality with an estimated net worth of $500 million. Martha Stewart was born in Jersey City, New Jersey to middle-class Polish-American parents. She earned a partial scholarship to Barnard College in Manhattan and worked part-time as a model to pay the bills. Martha married Andrew Stewart as a college sophomore and kept modeling until her daughter Alexis was born.

Later, Stewart worked briefly as a Wall Street stockbroker before finding her calling as a domestic diva when she launched a catering business from the basement of her Connecticut home. At the peak of her career in 2011, Martha Stewart had an estimated net worth of $638 million.

Martha grew up in a family that enjoyed traditions – traditions that Martha would later turn into a multi-million dollar career. She learned sewing and cooking from her mother, canning and crafts from her grandmother, gardening from her father, and art and style from high school classes and a short modeling career.

Martha attended Barnard College in New York City on a partial scholarship, where she majored in art and history. She took a brief hiatus and married Andy Stewart, then studying law. Together, they are the parents of one child, Alexis Stewart.

As it happens, Martha Stewart is also cousin to funnyman Jimmy Kimmel.

Martha started out not as a designer or in home renovation, but as a Wall Street stockbroker. She was quite adept at it, but left the profession in 1973 to give more of her time to her family. Instead, she found herself 100% involved in her famous abode on Turkey Hill Road, which she and her husband completely renovated on their own. The set was later used the TV program Martha Stewart Living.

She used her business acumen to start a catering business which also proved successful. Martha was a gourmet food market manager, as well, and she turned that into a profitable business. While catering a job for her husband’s publishing company, Martha was presented with the opportunity to author a cookbook. She accepted and that book, Entertaining was ghostwritten, but developed completely by Martha and became a New York Times bestseller.

After publishing a series of cookbooks and guides, and after landing as guest on TV shows from The Oprah Winfrey Show to The Early Show, Martha continued her industrious career. She launched the magazine Martha Stewart Living which would later be the basis for her first eponymously named TV program.

The success of Martha Stewart Living as a magazine gave life to the TV show, and soon Martha was one of a number of new daytime talk show hosts. Living was less talk show than TV magazine, however Martha had become less a magazine publisher and TV host she had actually become a brand. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is the company that manages all things Martha Stewart.

Following the ImClone scandal, which also ended Martha Stewart Living on TV, Martha launched a new program, produced by Survivor’s Mark Burnett, simply titled Martha.

The Martha Stewart Show, or simply Martha, was a hybrid of the fine living guru’s previous programs, most notably Martha Stewart Living, which broadcast from 1993 until 2004. The hour-long program featured various how-to segments, centered around cooking, crafts and home organization, usually tied to an overall theme for the day. Most segments were hosted by Stewart, who often invited a celebrity guest to work with her on the project.

The program was produced by reality show producer and Survivor creator Mark Burnett. The two also teamed-up on the low-rated The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, a show in which contestants competed for a position with Stewart’s Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The show ran for one season.

Most people have heard about Martha Stewart having gone to jail but often don’t know the reason why. The ImClone stock trading case included the SEC and U.S. Attorney probing into the shares of ImClone Systems. It resulted in a widely publicized criminal case, leading to prison terms for businesswoman and television personality Martha Stewart, ImClone CEO Samuel D. Waksal and Stewart’s broker at Merrill Lynch, Peter Bacanovic.

The ImClone scandal as it became to be known accused Martha, along with others, of securities fraud and obstruction of justice related to trading of ImClone stock. ImClone is a biopharmaceutical company.

In late 2001, Martha sold ImClone stock a day before the value of the stock plunged, based on a report that drug had not received federal approval. She avoided losing $45,673 through the sale of that stock, according to the SEC.

She was indicted in 2003 and stood trial in 2004. Martha was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators. She spent five-months in jail and five months on house arrest.

The conviction has caused her problems, as one might expect. In June 2008, she was refused a visa to enter Great Britain. And as a result of the 2006 settlement of the civil case against her, Martha was barred from serving as a director, or as the CEO, CFO, and so forth, of any public company for five years.

It didn’t stop Martha however and she returned as fit and health and as business-minded as ever. A project of Martha’s is packaged and home-delivered ingredients and recipes for preparation at home, known as Marley Spoon.

In 2018, Martha started airing as a new recurring judge for Chopped, a cooking competition on the Food Network. Then in October she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, with Julia Roberts. In 2019, a Canadian marijuana company called Canopy Growth (CGC) made news when Stewart agreed join their company as an adviser.

Then in 2020, a new gardening show called Martha Knows Best premiered on HGTV. On the show Stewart provides gardening help to individual callers as well as a list of her celebrity friends. As of 2023, Martha Stewart’s net worth is estimated to be $500 million.