Let's Take a Look Back at Martha Stewart's Stint in Prison

It's hard to imagine Martha Stewart in prison but if anyone can turn a drab surrounding into a cozy, decent place to live, it's the queen of homemaking. In 2004 Stewart spent five months at Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia, which is no picnic. She was 63 years old and by all accounts, was at the height of her impressive career.

Two decades later, a woman who was incarcerated with Stewart was featured in a CNN docuseries titled The Many Lives of Martha Stewart. Meg Phipps shared a not very unsurprising story about the woman who could probably spin straw into gold entirely on her own.

Phipps revealed that on the day of Stewart's release, they threw a potluck party in her honor. Somehow Stewart brought a caramel flan. Phipps still didn't know how she did it. What did Martha Stewart go to jail for? Details to follow.

On Dec. 27, 2001, Stewart sold 4,000 shares of the biotech firm ImClone the day before its "key cancer treatment was thrown out by regulators," per the BBC. This of course caused the company's shares to plummet. Had Stewart not offloaded her stock, she would have undoubtedly lost a good chunk of change.

Eight months later, ImClone co-founder and former chief executive Sam Waksal was indicted for urging members of his family to sell their stock before it took a hit. It just so happens that Waksal and Stewart were very good friends. In October 2002, Stewart resigned from the board of the New York Stock Exchange after being on it for only four months.

This came on the heels of a federal prosecutor letting Stewart know that a key witness agreed to testify against her regarding insider trading.

Despite Stewart claiming that selling the ImClone stock was something she and her broker already planned to do, the business mogul was charged with "four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a well-timed stock sale," reported CNN.

Her former broker, Peter Bacanovic, was also found guilty of four of the five charges brought against him. Both received five-month prison sentences. Stewart was also ordered to pay a $30,000 fine.

In a statement posted to her website (via CNN), Stewart maintained her innocence and promised to appeal the verdict. Obviously that appeal was denied.

Apparently 2024 is the year of Martha Stewart because Netflix also released a documentary about the impressive entrepreneur. It's simply titled Martha and goes into what life was like for Stewart after she got out of prison.

Due to the conviction, she was forced to resign as CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, gave up her show, and lost all of her brand partnerships. She was in a bit of a pickle — Stewart needed money and had very few options.

That's when Mark Burnett, creator of The Apprentice, pitched Stewart a daytime talk show. "Mark Burnett wanted a talk show with variety guests, and I really wanted my old format of 'how-to," said Stewart in the documentary. Unfortunately, what she got was not what she wanted. "A live audience, crummy music, that was more like prison than being at Alderson," she recalled.

Still, the show stayed on for eight years until it ended in 2012. It got Stewart out of the financial mess she found herself in. Three years later Stewart met Snoop Dogg at the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber, and the two forged a friendship that led to an online series.

The duo also did some commentary during the 2024 Paris Olympics. As Stewart once said, "The more you adapt, the more interesting you are."