falsely claimed in her new Netflix documentary that a journalist who covered her past legal struggles was dead.
“New York Post lady was there, just looking so smug. She had written horrible things during the entire trial,” Stewart, 83, recalled in Martha, referring to reporter . “But she is dead now, thank goodness. And nobody has to put up with the crap she was writing all the time.”
Peyser, however, rebuffed Stewart’s claims in a Thursday, November 7, column for the New York Post.
“I’m alive, bitch!” she wrote. “News of my passing came as a shock. Should I be scared about continuing to write that ‘crap’?”
In 2004, Stewart was found guilty on felony charges of conspiracy to obstruct and of making false statements to federal investigators. She was sentenced to five months in prison and a two-year period of supervised release. The lifestyle guru was released from jail in March 2005.
Peyser, meanwhile, covered the legal proceedings and claimed on Thursday that Stewart focused her “fury” over the situation toward her articles.
“I was there in 2004 when the uproarious trial began with court officers acting as Martha’s personal valets, clearing the ice in front of the courthouse so that the defendant and her entourage would have an unslippery path from limo to building,” Peyser wrote. “Sitting front and center throughout the six-week event was a veritable celebrity petting zoo, featuring an ever-changing cast of Martha’s famous and infamous pals. They shielded their tired tushies from the hard wooden benches with high-end gel pads provided by the entertainment guru while the rest of us mortals suffered in the cheap seats.”
Nearly 20 years later, Peyser feels “overwhelmingly sad” about Stewart’s bitterness in the past media coverage.
“In the years since my close encounters with the Marvelous Ms. M, now a spritely 83 years old, she’s gone from being a billionaire to a mere multimillionaire,” Peyser added. “But I get the sense that Martha is lonely. … She’s rich. She’s beautiful, creative and temperamental. I pity her.”
Stewart has not publicly responded to Peyser’s comments. She has, however, expressed her distaste for how Martha turned out.
“R.J. [Cutler] had total access [to my archives], and he really used very little,” Stewart told The New York Times of the project’s director. “It was just shocking. 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.”
Martha is currently streaming on Netflix.
