Martha Stewart recently delved into her relationship with her father, Edward Kostyra, in her new Netflix documentary. At 83, the renowned homemaker recounted her father's furious reaction when she became engaged to Andrew Stewart. The couple's meeting was orchestrated by Martha's classmate and Andrew's sister, who introduced them while Martha was an undergraduate at Barnard College in New York City and Andrew was a law student at Yale University. Martha admitted she "fell in love" with Andrew after their first date, leading to a swift engagement—a decision that did not sit well with Kostyra.
"I went home and told my dad, and my dad slapped me," she revealed. "He slapped me hard on my face and said, 'No, you're not marrying him. He's a Jew.'" Martha recalled the incident vividly, acknowledging that she wasn't surprised given her father's bigotry and impulsiveness. "But I said, 'I'm gonna get married no matter what you think.'" Martha's mother, affectionately known as "Big Martha," played a pivotal role in helping her create her stunning wedding gown. Martha described her 1961 wedding to Andrew as "very happy" and the start of a new chapter in her life.
Growing up as one of six children in Nutley, New Jersey, Martha's mother was a schoolteacher, while her father, a failed businessman, was described as a perfectionist. "Dad made each of us learn how to garden. He could grow anything. I was the ideal daughter. I wanted to learn, he had a lot to teach, and I listened," Martha shared. She also noted, "My father was the handsomest father. He loved me, and it was very obvious to everybody that I was his favorite. He thought I was more like him than the other children. He got the job done that he was set out to do. Not his work work. He was a failure in work."
Martha continued, "He could’ve done pretty much anything he wanted to do and he was stuck in salesman job. He sometimes started the day off with a large glass of coffee and red wine. So is that an alcoholic? Maybe. But he never looked like a drunk. He never stumbled around and threw things and broke things. That wasn’t my father. But he was a dissatisfied, unhappy human being." Martha's relationship with her dad became increasingly strained after she met Andrew during her college years. She described their first date as exciting, meeting a sophisticated young man with an American Express card, which was a significant status symbol at the time. "By the end of dinner I was madly in love," she said, highlighting the stark contrast between Andrew and her father.
Martha also candidly discussed losing her virginity to Andrew at age 19, describing him as aggressive but in a way she found appealing. The couple married in 1961 and welcomed their daughter, Alexis Stewart, four years later. Martha's father passed away in 1979, while her mother died in 2007. Martha and Andrew's marriage ended in divorce in 1990, with Andrew later marrying Martha's assistant, Robyn Fairclough. In the documentary, Martha accused Andrew of infidelity with Fairclough and admitted to having an affair of her own, unknown to Andrew.
Reflecting on her divorce in 2020, Martha described it as "terrible" and revealed that she and Andrew had not spoken since. "Getting divorced was a terrible thing for me, because we were the first to divorce in my family," she told People. "And that we haven’t spoken since the divorce is even more painful."
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