Martha Stewart said Bravo host and producer Andy Cohen had the wrong idea when he approached her about joining the cast of The Real Housewives of New York City.
The homemaking mogul, 84, revealed why she turned down Cohen’s offer on Thursday’s Today with Jenna & Sheinelle. Host Jenna Bush Hager told Stewart, “You know that Andy Cohen’s ultimate housewife would be you,” to which Stewart replied that she understood why.
“Oh, of course. He wanted me,” she said.
Page Six reported last August that Bravo was pursuing Stewart for the Housewives franchise. Her representative shut down speculation about her joining at the time.
Stewart explained, “I’m not a housewife anymore. I’m a homemaker,” putting special emphasis on the word. It’s been more than three decades since she divorced her one and only husband, Andrew Stewart, in 1990 after 31 years of marriage.
When Bush Hager expressed her enthusiasm for the response, “Let’s go!” Stewart added, “I am—and that’s what I want to be: a homemaker.”
Stewart will briefly appear on the show, as her longtime makeup artist Daisy Toye joins the Season 16 cast. A teaser revealed that the original homemaking influencer makes a surprise cameo in the season, during which she teases Toye about her kitchen.
“What do you have in this kitchen? Store-bought pie? Oh, come on,” she tells Toye in the teaser. “There’s so much to do in here.”
Stewart told Today about Toye, “She’s married to the nicest man and has the nicest child. And I just hope that she doesn’t get spoiled being a housewife.”
The star will be keeping busy with other projects despite turning down Housewives, as she continues promoting her skincare line, Elm Biosciences, and the home management app company she co-founded, Hint.
A biographical film about her life, titled Good Things, and starring Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, is also in the works, though it is unclear how much involvement Stewart will have.
The new project follows her Netflix documentary with Hollywood documentarian RJ Cutler, which Stewart was initially not a fan of, as it covers her trial for the charges that later landed her in prison for four months in 2004 and 2005: conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and lying to federal investigators. Stewart initially called the film “lazy” for focusing “on my stupid trial, which was so unfair.”
Cutler said she eventually came to see the film’s “many, many virtues.”
