Martha Stewart claimed a journalist was dead – now the reporter’s speaking out

A journalist has hit back at Martha Stewart after the lifestyle guru mistakenly claimed she was dead.

The 83-year-old businesswoman spoke about New York Post reporter Andrea Peyser in her new documentary, Martha. During the Netflix documentary, Stewart reflected on being convicted of four counts of obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal investigators in 2004, resulting in a five-month prison sentence.

Peyser, who attended Stewart’s trial 20 years ago, wrote some controversial articles about Stewart at the time. In one piece, she described the cookbook author as the “queen of total freaks.”

“The New York Post lady was there, just looking so smug,” Stewart recalled in the documentary, without mentioning Peyser’s name. “She had written horrible things during the entire trial.”

The entrepreneur added: “But she’s dead now, thank goodness. Nobody has to put up with that crap that she was writing all the time.”

However, the journalist seemingly resurrected from the dead on Thursday (November 7), as she hit back at Stewart in a new article for the New York Post, titled: “Hey Martha Stewart, you gloated about the death of a Post columnist – but I’m alive, b****!”

In the piece, she quipped about Stewart’s false claims that she was dead. “News of my passing came as a shock. Should I be scared about continuing to write that ‘crap’?” Peyser wrote.

Peyser alleged that the A-lister had “focused her fury” toward her in the Netflix documentary, and shared her candid reaction to Stewart’s belief she was dead.

“But rather than feeling angry or worried that Martha has offed me, or to seek an emergency order of protection, I am overwhelmingly sad in the face of Martha’s bitterness,” she wrote.

The piece also included digs at the lifestyle guru’s previous relationships, as Peyser mentioned Stewart’s split from her husband Andrew in 1990 after 29 years of marriage. Stewart confessed in the documentary that she was unfaithful to Andrew during their marriage. The former couple share a 59-year-old daughter, Alexis.

While Peyser concluded the piece by calling Stewart “beautiful, creative, and temperamental,” she also admitted that she “pitied” the book author.

The Independent has contacted a representative for Stewart for comment.

In the documentary, which was released on Netflix on October 30, Stewart reflected on her trial in 2004 and how it affected her family. “Guilty, guilty, guilty on all these counts of whatever,” Stewart said. “My daughter, she fainted when they read the verdict. Poor child.”

“It was so horrifying and incomprehensible,” she added. “And then I woke up and was, unfortunately, still there.”

Stewart served a five-month prison sentence at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia after she was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators. The charges stemmed from accusations of insider trading. Stewart was not convicted of insider trading during the trial.

The media personality reportedly lost $1bn as a result of the scandal. By 1999, her empire was valued at $1.9bn. Her namesake stock, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, took a nosedive and she was forced to resign from the board.

Shortly after the documentary hit Netflix, Stewart claimed it was “shocking” how little of her own archive director RJ Cutler used, despite having “total access.”

“Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those. And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them,” she told The New York Times last month, taking an aim at the second half of the film.

“I had ruptured my Achilles’ tendon. I had to have this hideous operation. And so I was limping a little. But again, he doesn’t even mention why – that I can live through that and still work seven days a week.”