From Locked Up to Hollywood! Martha Stewart Details Solitary Confinement 'With No Food or Water for a Day'... Before Rebuilding Billion-Dollar Empire Again

Martha Stewart didn't set out to be the arbiter of American taste. After graduating from Barnard College in 1963, she began working as a stockbroker on Wall Street, RadarOnline.com can reveal. But after giving birth, the new mom left New York City to raise her daughter, Alexis, with her then-husband, Andrew Stewart, in Westport, Connecticut.

"I was living two very distinctly different lives," she explained. "And the life of the homemaker was more interesting to me than the life on Wall Street."

Martha, now 84, started an at-home catering company, which quickly grew into a multimillion-dollar business and led to the publishing of her first book, Entertaining, in 1982.

"That really changed my life," she said. "I found my voice – and I think I'd found my career."

Entertaining was a huge hit – and 43 years after its release, the book has been reissued amid renewed popularity following a slew of recent documentaries chronicling the lifestyle guru's rise, fall and reinvention after being imprisoned for insider trading in 2004.

Fans scoured sites like eBay and RareBooks.com for the out-of-print tome, some of which were going for as much as $1,700.

"Many of them had seen the cookbook in their mothers' collection and asked their mothers for the book," Martha said.n"But mothers are not keen on giving it up."

When asked why TikTokers and twenty-somethings would want to get their hands on it, Martha replied: "Because I'm cool. Not only can I cook, I hang out with Snoop Dogg, and I have gone to jail. I have been through the wringer and come out alive."

Entertaining's success led to her own magazine, TV show and product line.

Then, in 1999, her company went public, making Martha, divorced since 1990, the first self-made female billionaire in the U.S.

"I was lucky, and I was smart," she told Fortune. "I built a beautiful company, and I was rewarded. And that's the American way."

Scandal struck in 2005, however, when Martha was convicted of insider trading.

The domestic diva became the butt of late-night hosts' jokes after a court found her guilty of lying to prosecutors about why she sold shares of a biotechnology company.

She was sentenced to five months behind bars at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia.

It was no "Camp Cupcake," despite the nickname given to the minimum-security all-women's prison: The DIY queen was once sent to solitary confinement for touching a guard's key chain, receiving, she said, "No food or water for a day."

She began her reinvention as soon as she was released, wearing a poncho crocheted by a fellow inmate. She launched a new cooking show, a radio show and vetted up-and-comers like Bethenny Frankel on The Apprentice.

She made winking references to her past, selling a nativity scene on QVC, for example, based on one she made in pottery class while "away at camp."

Her unlikely friendship with known cannabis lover Snoop, 54, who appeared on her show in 2008, introduced her to a new, younger audience.

"What an odd couple we were," Martha said.

But the public couldn't get enough.

The duo went on to co-host several culinary competitions and charmed viewers with their commentary at the 2024 Paris Olympics. They also went into business.

Martha released a Chardonnay for Snoop's 19 Crimes wine line and they starred in a campaign for Bic lighters.

"Because she likes to light candles, and you know what I like to light," Snoop joked.

She also mastered the art of social media, going viral with a 2020 selfie from her East Hampton, N.Y., swimming pool.

"Martha servin' up more than just crafts, cooking and cocktails today!" read one comment.

The "thirst trap" led to her posing for the cover of Sports Illustrated's 2023 Swimsuit Issue, the oldest woman to do so.