The Truth About Martha Stewart's Ex-Husband Finally Revealed
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Martha Stewart, renowned homemaker, media mogul, and ex-con, has been single for several years now, ever since she and long-term husband Andrew Stewart divorced in 1990. Andrew (a.k.a. Andy) remarried not long after the divorce, but Martha, now 79, is single still, though her recent thirst-trap elicited a few proposals, according to People.
While Martha remains prominently in the public eye, her ex-husband has managed to avoid much media attention in the last few decades as the couple's infamous divorce slowly fades from public consciousness. Most people probably don't even know who Andrew Stewart is at this point, even though Martha's overwhelming success has maintained her status as a household name for years (and probably more years to come). How did two people this different spend nearly 30 years together? We took a look at the Stewart's love story and beyond to uncover the truth about the elusive Andrew Stewart.
Andrew and Martha Stewart met on a blind date and married young
Andrew Stewart met Martha when he was 23 years old and studying law at Yale. Martha Kostyra (as she was known at the time) was a professional model, working on the side while she earned a degree in European history and architectural history at Barnard College (via New York Magazine). The two were set up on a blind date, and years later, Martha told New York Magazine that the soon-to-be star couple "fell in love the first date, that kind of thing." Just a year later, in July of 1961, they were married.
Martha and Andrew's first home as newlyweds was a 21st-floor penthouse in the Upper East Side. "It was pretty classy for a little girl from Nutley, New Jersey!" Martha wrote in Vulture. They were together for 29 years and had one child together, Alexis Stewart, before ultimately divorcing in 1990.
He and Martha Stewart had one child
In 1965, Martha Stewart and Andrew had their first and only child, Alexis Stewart. Stewart was raised in New York City, and according to her bombshell 2011 book Whateverland: Learning to Live Here, Alexis' childhood was not the domestic dream of her mother's magazines and television sets. "I grew up with a glue gun pointed at my head," Stewart wrote.
Though she didn't get along well with her parents, Alexis admitted that her own cynical disposition was in part to blame for the tension between them. "My attitude is much different than my mother's, so I can't argue with her ... I'm very cynical and negative. She's not," Alexis said in New York Magazine.
Still, that didn't stop her from writing an entire book about her mother's "very hands-off approach to child rearing." Alexis even claimed that Martha hated holidays, shattering the famous hostess' cheery persona. "Halloween was also a grim affair: There were no costumes. There was no anything," she wrote. "We turned off all the lights and pretended we weren't home."
Martha Stewart ditched him on their honeymoon
After Martha and Andrew Stewart married in 1961, they jetted off to Europe for their honeymoon — but it wasn't all smooth sailing for this celebrity couple, even in the beginning. While in Florence, Italy, Martha and Andrew met a "handsome young Englishman." According to Jerry Oppenheimer in Just Desserts, his tell-all book about Martha Stewart, the Englishman had a few drinks with the newlyweds at the hotel bar one evening. When Andy wanted to call it a night, Martha had other plans.
"Upset and angry, Andy went to bed alone while Martha went off with her new friend," Oppenheimer wrote. Apparently, Martha ditched her husband to drink with another man — on their honeymoon! When she finally returned to their hotel room, she told Andy she had gone to a midnight mass (was someone feeling a little guilty, perhaps?). Unfortunately, their relationship didn't get much better from there.
Andrew's affection for Martha Stewart was not reciprocated
In Jerry Oppenheimer's book, Just Desserts, published in 2007, he spoke with several of Martha Stewart and Andrew's close friends who claimed that the Stewart's marriage was far less idyllic than their glossy magazine photographs made it seem. Martha allegedly berated her husband constantly, and former staff at the Stewart's home in Westport, Connecticut, said she treated him "like a dog turd."
"She was constantly accusing him of being 'dumb' or 'stupid,'" Oppenheimer wrote (via Daily Mail). "There were times when there was utter and complete tension and long hostility-filled silences between them that you could cut with a knife."
According to Norma Collier, Martha's first business partner, "Andy loved Martha deeply, but he was always being belittled or berated by her" (via People). Despite how the couple was portrayed in the media, apparently Martha could be quite a tyrant — and who better to take it out on than the man who most adored her?
Martha Stewart took the divorce very hard – especially when Andrew started dating her former assistant
Despite Martha Stewart's alleged cruelty toward her husband, her divorce from Andy Stewart was an emotionally taxing experience. Mariana Pasternak, an old friend of Martha's, said Martha was a bit of a maneater in the years following the couple's split.
As Pasternak told the New York Post, Martha sought attention from men post-divorce "in order to prove to herself that she was desirable. I think that Andy leaving her made her feel undesirable."
Andy was known as the "brains" behind Martha's early professional success, and when they divorced after 29 years together, Andy started dating (and eventually married) Martha's former kitchen assistant, creating more heartache for Martha. (One might argue that she deserved it, but we will abstain from such snarky opinions.) According to Pasternak, Martha would frequently spy on Andy in the middle of the night, and sometimes she got so upset about the whole ordeal that she beat herself with her fists and pulled out her hair.
Andrew and Martha Stewart were both unfaithful in their marriage
Andrew and Martha Stewart had enough marital problems to fuel several divorces — perhaps at the top of the list is their individual acts of infidelity. After Marthas spent a late night with a stranger while on her honeymoon with Andy, it just got worse. Once, at one of many parties the Stewarts hosted and attended, Martha flirted with Andy's colleague. She sat on his lap, and according to him, "there was a lot of chemistry going both ways" (via Daily Mail).
Another time, when Martha and Andrew were fighting, Martha admitted to sleeping with another man while on a business trip. Jerry Oppenheimer relayed the argument in his book, Just Desserts, claiming that Andy was shocked and upset, while Martha brushed it off as though it wasn't a big deal.
But Andy also cheated on Martha. Oppenheimer wrote about one instance in which the couple had an argument that resulted in Andy claiming that it wasn't just Martha who had had an affair — they had apparently both been unfaithful to one another.
Martha Stewart thought she was 'more talented' than Andrew
Though Andrew had a successful career of his own as the president of the Harry N. Abrams publishing house, Martha Stewart's fame often overshadowed his. Andy knew Martha felt superior to him and once claimed that she was "not tolerant of my negligence or my foolishness or my eccentricities" (via People).
Norma Collier, one of Martha's former business partners, told People that she once heard Martha talking to Andy while working a catering event. "I'm more talented, and I deserve to take more money out of the business," she said to her husband, whose own career was, contrary to Martha's opinion of it, thriving.
According to CNN, Martha was always working, which created a rift between her and her family. "My life is my work and my work is my life," she said. She frequently made her family help her as though her job was theirs too. A former employee told Jerry Oppenheimer that once, when Andy was gardening at their house in Connecticut, Martha stood "with her hands on her hips, shrieking, 'Andy! Andy! Get your ass up here this minute! I have other work for you to do'" (via Daily Mail).
Andrew and his daughter didn't speak for years after the divorce — Alexis also had a bad relationship with Martha Stewart
Andy Stewart told People that he regrets the way he and Martha raised their only child, Alexis. "I think we did a poor job as parents. We were too involved in our professional lives and fixing up the house," he said. "We didn't spend enough time with Lexi."
Unfortunately, both Alexis' parents have suffered the consequences of their early neglect. Alexis didn't speak to her father for years, and her book, Whateverland: Learning to Live Here shared some of Martha's worst antics with the world.
Still, Alexis was apparently closer with her mother than her father, and despite the turmoil between the two women, Alexis frequently defends her mother when critics attack her (via New York Magazine). On the other hand, Alexis had difficulty reconciling with her father.
"She can't forgive him his behavior," Martha told New York Magazine. According to family friends, Alexis blamed her father for leaving and initiating the divorce.
"It's a source of tremendous pain for me," Andy said in People. "I think of her every single day, many times."
Martha Stewart's husband Andrew worked as a publisher
Andrew Stewart received a degree in law from Yale but only spent a few years as a lawyer before moving on to the publishing world. New York Magazine reported that he worked as a corporate lawyer at the Times-Mirror Corporation at around the same time Martha was starting Martha Stewart, Inc.
After a few years at the firm, Andy moved to the publishing side of the company, a role he maintained as his career progressed. Eventually, he became president of a Harry N. Abrams, Inc., the publishing company now known as Abrams Books. The publishing house specializes in art, illustrated, and children's books — the Stewart's careers complemented each other well.
Later, Stewart moved on to form his own publishing house, Stewart, Tabori & Chang. They published a similar style of books as Harry N. Abrams — the kind you keep on your coffee table with big, glossy pictures inside — and the two companies ultimately combined to become the Abrams Books that exists today (via New York Times).