Martha Stewart is far from perfectly perfect. In her new Netflix documentary, Martha—coming to the streamer on October 30—the 83-year-old businesswoman admits she cheated on her husband, Andrew Stewart. That includes a kiss with a stranger during their honeymoon, and a full-fledged affair with a “very attractive” Irish stockbroker in the early years of their marriage.
Directed by R.J. Cutler (Elton John: Never Too Late, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, The September Issue), Martha walks viewers through the life and career of Martha Stewart, from her childhood, to her successful homemaking guides, to her to billion-dollar company, and, finally, to her infamous incarceration. Cutler manages to capture some surprisingly candid soundbites from Stewart, including an anecdote in which she casually reveals she kissed another man while on her honeymoon with her ex-husband, Andrew Stewart.
The couple was married in 1961, when Stewart was a 19-year-old college student. Shortly after the wedding, they went on what Stewart describes as an “extended honeymoon to Europe. This was like a five-month trip.”
Stewart remembers being in Florence, Italy on the night before Easter. She felt compelled to go to church. Her new husband stayed at the hotel, while she visited a cathedral.
“It was a very romantic place, crowded with tourists,” Stewart recalled. “I met this very handsome guy. He didn’t know I was married. I was this waif of a girl hanging out in the cathedral on Easter Eve. He was emotional, I was emotional. It was just because it was an emotional place. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. An expansive dome, so beautiful, and paintings all around you. It was nothing I had ever done before. And so why not kiss some stranger?”
At this point, Cutler cuts to a wide shot, in which a producer asks Stewart, “Was it uh… what’s the word I’m looking for…”
“Naughty?” Stewart suggests.
“Was it naughty, or was it infidelity?” the producer asks.
“It was neither naughty nor unfaithful,” Stewart replies. “It was just emotional, of the moment. That’s how I looked at it.”
Later in the documentary, Stewart also reveals that she had a full-blown extramarital affair when she worked as a stockbroker in the late ’60s. It comes up, ironically, while Stewart is lamenting her husband’s many affairs.
“Young women, listen to my advice: If you’re married and your husband starts to cheat on you, he’s a piece of shit,” Stewart tells the camera.
Off camera, we hear a producer press, “Didn’t you have an affair early on in the relationship, when you were a stockbroker?”
“Uh, yeah,” Stewart replies, seemingly caught off guard. “But I don’t think Andy ever knew about that.”
The producer tells Stewart that her ex-husband did, in fact, know about the affair, and had told the filmmakers he only cheated on Stewart after she did so, first. Stewart insists that’s not true, but she does share a few details about her affair.
“I had a very brief affair with a very attractive Irish man,” she says. “It was just nothing. It was nothing. I would never have broken up a marriage for it. It was nothing. It was nothing. It was like the kiss in the cathedral.”
Stewart also describes her husband’s affair with Robyn Fairclough, who was then one of Stewart’s employees, and who would go on to be Andrew Stewart’s second wife. “Robyn worked for me, and she had lost or apartment, or something. I said, ‘Oh, you can move into the barn on the lower two acres,'” Steward explained. “It was like I put out a snack for Andy.”
The married couple separated by 1987, and their divorce was officially finalized in 1990. They have one daughter, Alexis Stewart, who is now 59.
Martha will begin streaming on Netflix on October 30.