Celebrity chef Ina Garten is getting real about her fractured relationship with Martha Stewart – and is claiming that the story Stewart is telling ‘isn’t exactly accurate.’
Garten, 76, spoke about the star during a live Q+A at the People Magazine offices last Thursday.
Rumors of a rift between them have been going on for a few years now, with Stewart, 83, most recently claiming that Garten stopped speaking to her after she was sent to prison for insider trading in 2004.
However, according to the Barefoot Contessa star, that’s not really what happened.
‘Well, let’s just say her story isn’t exactly accurate,’ Garten told People.
‘And, you know, that was 25 years ago,’ she continued with a laugh. ‘I think it’s time to let it go.’
However, whether or not we will ever know the truth behind what happened in their friendship, the two have agreed that their friendship soured in the early 2000s, with Garten claiming they ‘lost touch’ when she moved to Connecticut.
According to TIME Magazine, the two first met in The Hamptons, when Garten still owned a food store in East Hampton.
Celebrity chef Ina Garten is getting real about her fractured relationship with Martha Stewart – and is claiming that the story Stewart is telling ‘isn’t exactly accurate’
Garten, 76, spoke about the star during a live Q+A at the People Magazine offices last Thursday
Rumors of a rift between them have been going on for a few years now, with Stewart, 83, most recently claiming that Garten stopped speaking to her after she was sent to prison for insider trading in 2004
She admitted that Stewart played a big role in helping launch her career.
‘My desk was right in front of the cheese case and we just ended up in a conversation,’ Garten said during a 2017 appearance on How to Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, per the outlet.
‘We ended up actually doing benefits together where it was at her house and I was the caterer and we became friends after that,’ Garten continued about Stewart.
Garten even shared that Stewart helped her connect with an editor when she was working on her first book proposal.
In addition to her recent comments about Garten, Stewart also spoke about it in a September profile that The New Yorker did on Garten.
‘When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,’ Stewart told the outlet.
‘I found that extremely distressing and extremely unfriendly,’ she continued, although her publicist later told the magazine that she was ‘not bitter at all and there’s no feud.’
Meanwhile, Garten has ‘firmly’ denied that Martha’s prison sentence had anything to do with their rift.
‘We ended up actually doing benefits together where it was at her house and I was the caterer and we became friends after that,’ Garten continued about Stewart
‘When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,’ Stewart told the outlet
‘And, you know, that was 25 years ago,’ Garten continued with a laugh of her rift with Stewart. ‘I think it’s time to let it go’
In her recent Netflix documentary, Martha, which followed her life since she was a young girl, she admitted that many friends dropped her once she went to prison.
However, Stewart has said she wasn’t a huge fan of the piece, as she thinks it focused too much on her ‘stupid trial.’
Stewart added that felt ‘so unfair’.
She also said that it didn’t feature many of her collaborations in recent years.
However, the homemaking mogul said that she is currently writing an autobiography, which she claims will be published by Random House in two years.
