Martha Stewart is supremely miffed that her past legal troubles were even mentioned in her Netflix documentary, Martha. You know, that little kerfuffle where she was accused of insider trading and then convicted of lying to the FBI after being targeted by an overzealous James Comey that resulted in a two-month prison sentence. Why on earth would anyone want to put that in a biographical documentary! Martha hasn’t forgotten that period, though she’d very much like you to. Martha also hasn’t forgotten the NY Post columnist who covered her 20 years ago, though she has forgotten the woman’s real name. And the fact that she’s still alive. During an interview segment in the doc, Martha declares it a very good thing that “New York Post lady” is dead. Which of course prompted said “lady,” aka Andrea Peyser, to clap back with: “I’m alive, bitch!” Excellent, no notes.
Martha Stewart mistakenly killed off a journalist mentioned in her new Netflix documentary, Martha.
In the film, which aired on Oct. 30, Stewart, 83, claimed Andrea Peyser — a New York Post columnist who covered Stewart’s infamous 2004 trial — was “dead now, thank goodness.” Except, she isn’t.
Peyser used her latest column for the newspaper to declare, “I’m alive, bitch!” Peyser, who started working for New York Post in 1989, has published at least eight other stories in 2024.
Stewart was convicted for lying to the FBI during an insider-trading investigation in 2004.
“Guilty, guilty, guilty on all these counts of whatever,” she said in Martha. “My daughter, she fainted when they read the verdict. Poor child.”
Stewart referred to Peyser as simply “New York Post lady” and recalls seeing her in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. In her latest story, Peyser confirmed she “wrote weeks of Post columns” during that time.
“New York Post lady was there, just looking so smug,” said Stewart. “She had written horrible things during the entire trial. But she is dead now, thank goodness. And nobody has to put up with the crap she was writing all the time.”
“News of my passing came as a shock,” said Peyser of her “uncredited cameo appearance.”
“But rather than feeling angry or worried that Martha has offed me, or to seek an emergency order of protection, I am overwhelmingly sad in the face of Martha’s bitterness.”
It is unclear why Stewart believed Peyser was dead.
See, Ryan Reynolds, you got off easy just being called “not so funny in real life.” Martha could’ve knocked you off in her imaginary life! Ahead of its release, I predicted the pop cultural ripple effects of Martha would be epic, and I do believe that prediction has borne out, my friends. Martha was denouncing the trial’s inclusion before the doc even came out, which only served to bring more attention to that ordeal and whet our appetites for what else filmmaker R.J. Cutler had in store. (For what it’s worth, I thought Cutler actually did right by Martha in presenting a compelling case for the indictment being a legally-murky, overblown response from Comey.) It’s still hilarious to me, as an ardent observer of the human condition, that Martha was in a tizzy about coverage of her trial, when the real bombshells all had to do with her marriage, and selectively applied beliefs on fidelity. Martha wanted to cast her ex-husband Andy Stewart as a terrible cheater… and then turned around and casually dismissed her own indiscretions as not unfaithful but “emotional,” or not consequential because she would never leave her marriage over it and/or because Andy “never knew.” I’m not saying everything was Martha’s fault, I just find the gap in self-awareness FASCINATING.
Someone who’s not so enamored of all this rehashing? Andy Stewart’s current wife, who posted on social media recently that she wished Martha would please stop talking about a marriage that ended 34 years ago, one that she says was “painful and abusive” for Andy. And I think we all know who Martha’s going to declare dead next.
Photos credit: Getty, © 2024 Martha Stewart/Courte via Netflix Press, Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix, IMAGO/mpi099/MediaPunch/Avalon and screenshots from Martha on Netflix