Celebrity chef Ina Garten is getting real about her fractured relationship with Martha Stewart — and claims the story Stewart is telling “isn’t exactly accurate.”
Garten, 76, spoke about the star during a live Q+A on the People magazine offices last Thursday.
There have been rumors of a rift between them for a few years, with 83-year-old Stewart 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 doesn’t quite add up,” Garten told People.
“And you know, that was 25 years ago,” she continued, laughing. “I think it’s time to let it go.”
But whether we’ll ever know the truth behind what happened in their friendship or not, the two agree that their friendship soured in the early 2000s, with Garten claiming that they “lost touch” when she moved to Connecticut.
According to TIME magazinethe two first met in the Hamptons, when Garten still owned a grocery store in East Hampton.
Celebrity chef Ina Garten gets real about her fractured relationship with Martha Stewart – and claims the story Stewart is telling ‘isn’t exactly accurate’
Garten, 76, spoke about the star during a live Q+A at the People Magazine office last Thursday
Rumors of a rift between them have been going on for a few years, 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 launching her career.
“My desk was right in front of the cheese case and we just started talking,” Garten said during a 2017 appearance on How to Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, according to the outlet.
“We ended up doing benefits together at her house and I was the caterer and then we became friends,” Garten continued about Stewart.
Garten even said 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 profile in September The New Yorker did on Garten.
“When I was sent to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,” Stewart told the newspaper.
“I found that extremely poignant and extremely unkind,” she continued, although her publicist later told the magazine that she was “not bitter at all and there was no feud.”
Meanwhile, Garten has “strongly” denied that Martha’s prison sentence had anything to do with their disagreement.
“We ended up doing benefits together at her house and I was the caterer and then we became friends,” Garten continued about Stewart
“When I was sent to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,” Stewart told the newspaper
“And you know, that was 25 years ago,” Garten continued, laughing at her disagreement 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 abandoned her when she ended up in prison.
However, Stewart has said that she was not a big fan of the piece, as she feels it focused too much on her “stupid process.”
Stewart added that that felt “so unfair.”
She also said that there haven’t been many of her collaborations on it in recent years.
However, the household mogul said she is currently writing an autobiography, which she said will be published by Random House in two years.