Martha Stewart | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Martha Stewart rose from a working-class background to build a $1.2 billion empire through her homemaking brand, but was convicted of lying to federal investigators about insider trading and now faces prison time along with hundreds of millions in losses. Her story reveals the irony of preaching honesty while being found guilty of deception, and questions whether her company can survive without her personal brand.
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If you think that the ignominious fall from grace of Martha Stewart is the last we've heard from this remarkable woman, you do not know Martha Stewart. She seems to thrive on adversity, often leaving a wake of battered enemies and friends behind. For nine years on both 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes 2, keeping tabs on her following the arc from so-called domestic diva to corporate billionaire. In the light of her disgrace, the guilty verdict last Friday. Some of those conversations now reveal a certain irony.
Back in 1995 at her estate in Connecticut where asked about the importance of material wealth.
To tell you the truth, I could leave this place tomorrow except for my animals and my family. I could leave this place tomorrow and not feel any sense of loss whatsoever because I know with my knowledge I could go anywhere and create a life for myself and create a feeling that I'm I feel comfortable with without having what I already have
and start all again.
Oh, sure. No problem. I wouldn't miss a thing.
Last Friday may have been her darkest day. Her finest hour came in the fall of 1999 on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when to the sound of bells. The private Martha went public, leaving no doubt that Martha Stewart was not just living, she was reaching for the sun. The occasion was the public offering of shares in her company. 7.2 million shares. They opened that day at $18, soared to 52, and settled at $36.
With Martha Stewart's personal 70% stake in the company, by the end of that day, she was 1.2 billion dollars richer.
No other woman has created this kind of business in such a short time u from scratch from, you know, baking cookies in the basement. If you can find that person, let me know. Who took a company public and in the first day, you know, made, you know, over a billion dollars.
And all of it done without an ounce of humility. Nine years ago, she had already become Martha Stewart the brand, a walking, talking, multi-million dollar, oneperson corporation.
There was only one direction up. You have now entered the culture whether you like it or not as as a kind of icon. You have you're everywhere.
Well, icons are either believed or not believed. Icons are reviled or or admired. Um I know all about icons from history. Um, and if that's what it takes to be an icon, then you know, and if if it's my kind of work that is, um, encouraging these sentiments, then, um, I either sort of like ignore it or feel sorry for it or just, you know, don't pay any attention.
It was a name and face revered by millions. And what she was selling was that most indefinable and ambiguous of all products, taste. These open nicely in books in the Martha Stewart magazine on the Martha Stewart television series. She became the American goddess of the kitchen, living room, garden, and boudoir.
Yeah. Call it call it into the magazine and and get me.
But when you peeled away all the hype, the perfection in every department.
Okay. Well, find out that number and call me back at the office.
What you got is what you started with.
How great. I'll have a dinner. Martha Stewart. She was, someone said, as focused as a bullet in flight.
Find out if there's somebody else that can fill in for the next two weeks. This image or this symbol of impeccable taste, of ingenuity, of gastronomy, of botany, of aronomy, of animal husbandry. What are the one or perhaps two things you can't do?
I can't concentrate on games. I lose my concentration really fast. So you do not really abide frivolous things, frivolous activities,
not much.
It all started as a small homebased catering business in 1976.
I love that.
And became Martha Stewart Living Enterprises. Probably the only onewoman, one person conglomerate.
They fall apart really fast. Photograph with the in bloom would be so beautiful. How about the compost with the balls? All of its value embodied in this uncompromising body. Parody was irresistible. Her magazine Martha Stewart Living led to Is Martha Stewart Living? A funny, sometimes cruel version of Our Lady of Perpetual Perfection, offering such handy tips as making your own condoms and how to sweep.
They're having me make dirt. [laughter] They're having me make water. They're having me make air. You know, guess who makes those things? I don't make those things. There's somebody else out there that made those things.
This study in middle-aged American elegance started life as Martha Costra of Nutley, New Jersey, one of six children in a workingclass family. She does not believe in the work ethic. She is the work ethic. She was a favorite of fashion photographers, earning her way through Barnard College in New York, where she was a star student. then marriage the suburbs family.
I did have the perfect baby and the perfect young child and I did have the perfect house and I I've done all that already.
She neglects to mention the perfect husband, Andy Stewart, a publisher who became imperfect and left her after 29 years of marriage. That was just about the time Martha Stewart became Martha Stewart. I can't think of another example where a an entire corporation, which is what you are, is really one person. That's it.
I know. It's a real peculiar It is a peculiar situation. And it's it's a a single person kind of corporation because I have a name that's on the magazine, that's on the television show, that's on the books. But there has to nevertheless be a difference between that person we see on the television broadcasts and the magazine and the beautifully produced books and the person I'm talking to right now. What is the difference?
Well, there's not really much of a difference. I am Martha Stewart and um and my business has become also Martha Stewart. That's the complicated thing for the people who work with me. complicated because there was no separation in her life. All work was fun. All fun was work.
Do you ever kind of wake up in the middle of the night screaming? Uh
terrified.
Oh, terrified or happy?
I both.
No, no, I'm not terrified at all. I'm very happy.
Back then, the Steuart Empire occupied five floors in New York's highest rent district and had 400 employees. Her magazines had 9 million subscribers. her books, 8.5 million sold.
It's estimated that Martha Stewart has now lost nearly $400 million on legal fees and lost business opportunities and may lose millions more when fines are imposed or a little nut with a little nut on top.
The losses are stunning. It seems unlikely she'll be able to remain on the board of the company she founded. The New York Times syndicate removed her name from her columns and her television career may also be coming to an end. For years, her program was broadcast on various CBS stations.
The next Martha Stewart Living.
Today, we're going to teach you all about color [music] diamonds and gems.
After the guilty verdict, those stations immediately dropped her.
And Martha Stewart the brand. Kmart remained silent about continuing their relationship with Stuart, but when we talked to her in 1999, her sales through Kmart alone were $1 billion. As we said then, Martha Stewart wanted to fill every casual, practical, and romantic need Americans might have, and she hoped to create a few along the way. The Martha Stewart weddings division was only the beginning. Once we get you married with weddings, then we of course have to uh you know have have the babies of course.
And then at Kmart came Martha Stewart's everyday baby baby.
Get them in the cradle and you've got them to the ground.
So perhaps one day the Martha Stewart everyday casket which raised the question, can there be a Martha Stewart without Martha Stewart? Too soon to tell. But back in those prefelony days five years ago, she and we were full of optimism.
Tell me something. When I come back five years from now to do the second update,
I can't wait. [laughter]
Um, how big will you be? Well, I think um without making any financial projections, I think um it will be astonishing.
Astonishing, but not the kind of astonishing she meant. The federal accusations against her had already emerged when she was doing her stint on CBS's The Early Show. She made it clear it was something she did not want to talk about.
All right. Well, we're going to make salad, but
we are. But first, let me ask you a few things.
I have nothing to say on the matter. I'm I'm really not at liberty to say. And uh as I said, I think this will all be resolved in the very near future, and I will be exonerated.
I know any ridiculousness.
Alas, poor Martha. It was not to be. Clearly devastated by the likelihood of serving prison time, but still her steely nature would not allow her critics the satisfaction of tears. The Germans have a word for it. Shodenfroa, the pleasure we get from others misfortune. Jay Leno did not hesitate. And if you're trying to reach Martha, she has a new cell number. Cell number 68. Hey,
but God bless her. She is a businesswoman through and through. Do you see what this just came out today? I couldn't believe this is a new magazine. This is uh Big House and Gardens. [screaming]
Not so long ago, she was immune to even the crulest parody. I have quietly been plotting along like that poor old tortoise all these years building something that is of great worth and value. I think that that finally shook people to an awareness that you know that I'm not a parody. I shouldn't be parodyied. I shouldn't be uh uh sort of fooled around with like that. That's serious business.
In the end, it may have been sheer hubris, a belief in her own infallibility that may have been her undoing. I always thought about uh the idea of taking the P company public. I always wanted to do an IPO uh for several reasons. Um I um after having been on Wall Street as a broker, remember when I way back?
Yeah. Way way back. Um I um like the public markets. I understand them. And I think that it's one way to get people to understand uh like you that this is a serious company, a contender for uh prominence in the world of business.
As the Bible tells us, pride goeth before a fall and hotty spirit before destruction.
Tonight, four times guilty and Martha Stewart faces living in prison. Martha's boast that she knew so much about business was not lost on the jurors when they found her guilty of deliberately lying to federal investigators. Back in 1995, Martha gave us her thoughts on the question of sin that seemed so pedestrian we did not include them in our story.
Just listen.
What are the one or two sins that you just cannot abide in people? Uh, one thing is dishonesty. Uh, that bothers me a lot and um and I'm always amazed at how many people are dishonest. Um, and I think um another another um maybe amorality.
Amorality.
Yes.
As opposed to immorality.
Well, immorality. Well, amorality just lack of morals. Um, I think that that is another thing that bothers me a lot. I know it is.
I mean, what
So, they're serious. I mean, it's very [clears throat] serious.
I think what about sloth and laziness and idleness and
all that can be corrected. That can be corrected. You know, um, dishonesty just seems to be something that once you get into it, people just seem to not be able to get out of it.
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