Most of us know Martha Stewart as someone who doesn’t serve snacks at her parties and who would never cook offal or animal brains, even if her life depended on it. There’s also the fact that she isn’t known as a sweet lady off-camera, despite being soft-spoken and seemingly easy-going on her shows and during public appearances. In both her personal and professional life, it’s clear that Martha is unapologetically herself, even if that means being branded a stinker.
So, it doesn’t come as a surprise that she left a not-so-good impression on the Food Network during her first meeting with the channel’s big boss. The story goes that former Food Network President Eric Ober reached out to the lifestyle mogul’s brand, Martha Stewart Living, wanting to air old episodes of her daytime cooking show on the channel.
Stewart, who for some reason was contemptuous and skeptical of the then-budding network’s push to work with celebrity chefs, agreed to the multi-million dollar deal. However, she did so in a manner that was pretty offensive to Ober. Despite what transpired at the contract signing, the home and garden expert maintained a professional relationship with the Food Network boss, and the latter did the same.
Ober even recognized Stewart’s pulling power before “Martha’s Kitchen” started airing reruns of old episodes on the channel in 2001. “The addition of this series to our line-up is sure to delight viewers across the board,” he was quoted as saying by MarketWatch in 1999. The syndicated show continued to air on the channel until the mid-2000s, even after Ober’s term as president and general manager ended.
It would take over a decade for Stewart—who previously dabbled in different careers before establishing an identity as a homemaking guru—to once again strike a deal and make appearances on the channel. She became a recurring judge on “Chopped” starting in 2018, exiting the show in a grand finale that aired in 2021. She also starred in a reality cooking competition show for the network titled “Bakeaway Camp with Martha Stewart” in 2020.
It’s not clear if both parties are still open to collaborating after these two projects, but knowing Stewart, she never runs out of options when it comes to the channels and networks fighting to feature her brand. Her latest small-screen project was the cooking competition series “Yes, Chef!” which aired on NBC in 2025.
https://www.thetakeout.com/2091551/martha-stewart-offended-food-network/
