Illustration: Raul Arias
Domestic goddess. Influencer. Swimsuit model. Is there anything she can’t do?
When New Jersey Monthly ran a profile of Martha Stewart just a little over a decade ago, she had long been considered a home and media icon—a status that didn’t budge even during her 2004 prison stint for fraud. But nobody could have predicted that the domestic goddess from Nutley would add titles like social media star and even Sports Illustrated swimsuit model to her resume—all in her 70s and 80s.
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Yes, posing is in Stewart’s roots—growing up in the 1950s, she earned cash working as a model after school at the now defunct department store Bonwit Teller. But that certainly didn’t mean that she would land the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue last year at the age of 81, a coveted gig typically taken by much younger stars. Nor did anyone expect that she’d strike up a friendship and business relationship with the wild, weed-loving rapper Snoop Dogg.
But that’s the thing about Stewart. She’s always surprising us, keeping her relevant and interesting to an audience that seems to be expanding by the day.
On Instagram, Stewart has 2 million followers, who drink up her occasional thirst traps and other fun snippets from her life in Bedford, New York, and the Hamptons (she moved out of New Jersey years ago).
Her Instagram bio recently described her as “Entrepreneur. Author. Cook. Gardener. TV Host. Podcast host. Eternally curious. Teacher. Student. Mother. Grandmother. Friend.” That sounds about right, but what about “Jersey native?”
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