Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart has claimed former friend and cookbook author Ina Garten stopped talking to her after she was jailed in 2004 for insider trading.
Stewart, whose Martha Stewart Living conglomerate was once valued at $US1 billlion (approx $1.5 billion), made the claim during an appearance this week on Watch What Happens Live (WWHL) with Andy Cohen.
Stewart, 83, was responding to Garten’s claim the former friends simply lost touch after Stewart moved house.
Watch the video above.
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Garten, 76, found fame relatively later in life on the release of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.
Stewart has been widely credited with helping her then-friend get a publishing deal for the book, which shared the name of a specialty food store in The Hamptons.
Stewart lived in the upmarket area and would often visit the store.
Later, she reportedly offered Garten a job writing a column for Martha Stewart Living and even took a book publisher to visit Garten’s store prior to the book’s release in 1999.
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After appearing on the Martha Stewart Living TV show, she went on to have her own show, Barefoot Contessa, which led to more books and businesses.
Meanwhile, Stewart, whose TV show Martha Stewart Living first aired in 1993, was jailed in 2004 for insider trading.
She has since alleged her five-month stint in federal prison marked the end of her friendship with Garten, something she reiterated this week.
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During WWHL, Cohen asked Stewart if she had read Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens.
“I’ve read parts of it,” she said, adding “Oh yes,” when asked by Cohen if she had read the parts about her.
When fellow guest Snoop Dog asked what Garten had written about her, Cohen replied, “Ina said that they fell out because she moved to Connecticut,” causing Stewart to chime in, “That’s not true.”
Snoop then agreed, saying “Martha don’t fall out with people.”
Stewart then said they stopped talking “after I went to jail.”
Garten previously said the two struck up a friendship “in front of the cheese case” at her store before she began catering events at Stewart’s home.
“We became friends after that,” Garten said.
Garten told The New Yorker in September that the two lost touch when Stewart moved from The Hamptons to Connecticut.
However, Stewart refuted this, telling the publication, “When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me. I found that extremely distressing and extremely unfriendly.”
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A publicist for Stewart has since told The New Yorker that Stewart was “not bitter at all” and there was “no feud” between the pair.
Stewart is the subject of a new documentary, Martha, which is airing on Netflix.
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