Martha Stewart is an American TV star, business woman and writer. She has been aaround for a long time and during her long career her net worth has risen to incredible amounts.

Her estimated net  worth is around 300$ million.

Early life

Martha Helen Kostyra was born on August 3, 1941 in New Jersey. She grew up in a large family, and her parents had 6 children. Martha was the second oldest child. Her parents were Polish and while she was still young she used to work as a babysitter to earn her allowance.

When Martha was in high school, she started her modeling career. She continued to work as a model throughout her college years, and paid all of her expenses by doing so. Martha even modeled for Channel, which is something she is very proud of.

One thing her parents taught her, was, hard work and dedication. Her mother even taught her how to sew and cook, which Martha later used in her career in the best possible way.

She got her degree in History and Architectural history, and soon after graduation she married Andrew Stewart.

Career

Martha’s first job after marriage was as a stockbroker, thanks to her father-in-law’s profession. Later, her husband and her bought and redecorated an old farm house, that later became the base TV studio for Martha Stewart Living.

She showed great talent in decoration and restoration so she started a catering company together with her friend Norma Collier. Martha later bought Collier’s part of the business and continued working by herself.

Martha’s husband became the president of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and introduced Martha to Alan Mirken, who was the leading man of Crown Publishing Group.

Mirken and Martha had an idea of making a cookbook and the project came to life in 1982. The book’s title was “Entertaining” and following the success of the first release, Martha wrote many more books with similar themes.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

In 1997 Martha gathered all of her name-related businesses and created one large company called Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The company’s president, CEO and almost every other important role was taken by Martha.

The company later added the floral business and created a companion website and catalogue business. Her company even joined the New York Stock Exchange and the base price of the share was 18$.

Her shares soon went up to almost 40$ and she became one of the first billionaire woman in the United States.

Jail sentence

In 2004, Martha a media scandal began when she was charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to the federal investigators. The scandal involved her stocks and the insight she was given by Peter Bakocevic.

Her stock prices declined after that by 16% and she was sentenced to jail and civil penalty. After one year, in 2005, Martha was free and focused again on her business.

She started her television show and had many TV appearances. Since serving her jail sentence, she continued to expand her businesses and made a huge success with almost all of them. The projects involve house building businesses and many other retail-store connected projects.

Private life

In 1961 Martha married Andrew Stewart and had one daughter with him. Stewart had a large impact on Martha’s career and gave her good insight to the stock market. The marriage ended in 1990 and Martha was since then connected with many famous men in show business.

Her famous break up was with Antony Hopkins. She claims that after she saw Silence of the lambs, she could not stay with him anymore, because she couldn’t separate him from the character of Hannibal Lector.

She was included in the New Jersey Hall of Fame and she currently lives in Katonah New York. She is a passionate animal lover and has many pets to keep her company. Martha decided to stop wearing fur to raise awareness of animal cruelty and to help organizations that fight for animal rights.

Her mother, Martha Kostyra, who appeared several times on the Martha Stewart Living and was called Big Martha, died in 2007.

Quick summary:

Full Name: Martha Helen Kostyra

Date of Birth: August 3, 1941

Birth Place: New Jersey, USA

Age: 75 years

Profession: Business woman, TV star, writer

Height: 1.77 m

Weight: 70 kg

Net worth: 300$ million