The Real Reason Martha Stewart Broke Up With Anthony Hopkins

No one will deny that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picked the right man when they awarded the Best Actor Oscar to Sir Anthony Hopkins for his performance as Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs" (via IMDB). And while we'd imagine being an Oscar award winner could be a plus when it came to scoring dates, it had the opposite effect on America's domestic goddess Martha Stewart. During an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show, Stewart opened up during a session of "Two Truths and Lie" to admit that she ended things with the award-winning actor for a very specific reason. Martha said, "I dated Sir Anthony Hopkins but broke up with him because I couldn't stop thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter. I have a big scary house in Maine that's way by itself on a hundred acres in the forest. I couldn't even imagine taking Anthony Hopkins there" (via People).

She added, "All I could think of was him eating, you know ..." Those of us who have seen the film will have recalled the moment when Hopkins, who played the human flesh-eating Lecter, said, "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," with a sinister hiss. The sound was improvised, but it only adds malevolence to the scene (via SlashFilm). We can understand why Stewart would be a bit unnerved.

From Martha Stewart's comments, it wasn't clear exactly when it was that she had dated Anthony Hopkins as she keeps her love life private, but People reports that she had mentioned it during an interview with Howard Stern in 2006. "Do you want someone eating your brain while you are sitting in your beautiful dining room in Maine? I would have probably had a very nice relationship with Anthony Hopkins, but I couldn't get past the Lecter thing," she said at the time.

The internet had a field day with Stewart's dating confession, and fans took to social media to remind Martha of what she might have missed when she broke up with Hopkins. "She thought he was having an old friend for dinner," chortled one social media user. "Maybe she didn't like his approach to cooking fava beans," giggled another. A third even posted a gif of Hannibal Lecter behind bars with the caption, "Hello Martha."

But one social media user called out America's domestic goddess, tweeting, "... the best things in life are found on the other side of fear. That's why you always invite guests to your big old house and bring your big dogs, and knives, big kitchen knives, and an extra hammer ... a kitchen hammer, and ... I think you just got cold feet," along with a heart emoji.