Here's What Made Martha Stewart Refer To Ina Garten As 'Extremely Unfriendly'

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When celebrity friendships fall apart, it often becomes a media feeding frenzy as reporters and interviewers interrogate the former BFFs to find out what happened. Gossip-wise, what could be tastier than a feud between Martha Stewart and Ina Garten? Their long-simmering resentment was kept under wraps until Stewart opened up about it in a 2024 interview with The New Yorker in a profile of Garten, whose long-awaited memoir was about to be released. In the 1990s, Stewart and Garten had been neighbors in posh East Hampton, New York, and were both personal and professional friends. But according to Garten, they fell out of contact when Stewart began spending more time in Bedford, New York. Stewart, however, told The New Yorker a much different story.

"When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me," Stewart explained. "I found that extremely distressing and extremely unfriendly." A recent documentary about Martha Stewart details how her five-month prison sentence for insider trading in 2004 affected her career, but this revelation about Garten's possibly judgmental treatment of her was eye-opening. Stewart's claim (and Garten's denial of it) was widely reported, and when Stewart appeared on "Watch What Happens Live" with Snoop Dogg, she insisted that Garten's story wasn't true. Snoop defended Stewart: "Martha don't fall out with people." Stewart repeated her contention that Garten stopped speaking to her after she went to jail, and Snoop piped up, "Yeah, because see, that's when I stepped in."

Stewart was obsessed with Garten's luscious lemon bars that were sold at Garten's famous East Hampton specialty food shop, Barefoot Contessa. On one of her forays to pick a few up, Garten was there. According to Garten, they chatted, and Stewart invited her to cater several charity events at her home. They became fast friends, and Stewart cemented the relationship by bringing a publisher to the shop, which led to the publication in 1999 of "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook." A year later, Stewart's production company filmed a television pilot starring Garten for a proposed show on Food Network. But during filming, the director scolded Garten for not being more like Stewart, and she decided that television wasn't for her. Food Network chose not to produce "Someone's in the Kitchen with Ina," but later launched their new star in the first episode of "Barefoot Contessa."

In The New Yorker interview, Stewart acknowledged Garten's "broad appeal," but she threw a little shade by confessing she's never made any of her former friend's recipes. Garten isn't above throwing a little shade herself. In her memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," she refers to a New Year's Eve when Stewart spontaneously spun sugar with a doctored wire whisk and broom, acidly noting, "No one needs to know how to make spun sugar." However, Stewart maintains she holds no bitterness towards Garten. At a recent event, when questioned about the feud, Garten pleasantly but firmly said that after 25 years, "I think it's time to let it go" (via People).