Martha Stewart Says Director Refused to Cut Unflattering Footage From Netflix Documentary

Heavy/Getty Martha Stewart.

Martha Stewart is unhappy about the ending to her New Netflix documentary, “Martha,” despite the fact that it’s told in her own words.

The 83-year-old businesswoman spoke out in an October 30 interview with The New York Times to claim that director R.J. Cutler refused to cut out unflattering footage he used for the final scenes.

“Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those,” Stewart told the outlet. “And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them.”

“He had three cameras on me. And he chooses to use the ugliest angle,” she added. “And I told him, ‘Don’t use that angle! That’s not the nicest angle. You had three cameras. Use the other angle.’ He would not change that.”

Stewart explained that she had been recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon when the footage was shot and was “limping a little” after surgery. “But again, he doesn’t even mention why — that I can live through that and still work seven days a week,” she said.

Martha Stewart Blasted Cutler For Not Taking Advantage of the Full Access She Gave Him to Her Life

GettyR. J. Cutler and Martha Stewart attend Netflix’s “Martha” premiere at Paris Theater.

Stewart said Cutler used “very little” of the “total access” she gave him to her life, a move she called “shocking.”

While she sat down for on-camera interviews for the documentary, she noted that the director didn’t “get any” of the details of her famous magazine, “Martha Stewart Living.”  She also said there was no mention of her two grandchildren, Jude, 23, and Truman, 12, even though she talked about them in her interviews.

Stewart complained that the documentarian instead devoted extended time to her “boring” 2004 trial and prison sentence instead of the more interesting aspects of her life story. In 2004, Stewart was convicted of felony fraud charges related to ImClone stock trade, according to People magazine.

During a Q&A about the film, Cutler described Stewart as an “unreliable narrator.” “Martha’s story’s been told a lot, but it’s never been told by Martha,” he said, per Yahoo Entertainment. “One of the things you see is that she’s a complicated narrator. In literary terms, she’s an unreliable narrator. There are different versions of things. She’s complicated. Unreliable narration is maybe what [former Manhattan U.S. attorney] James Comey indicted her for.”

Cutler made a similar statement to the Los Angeles Times. “[In the documentary] you see how challenging it was for her to confront so much of her own story. It’s also a window into her as an unreliable narrator,” he said.

Martha Stewart May Participate in Another Documentary in the Future

This isn’t the first time Stewart complained about the “Martha” documentary. In a September 2024 interview with The Daily Beast, she said the beginning of the documentary  was “great” but the second half was “lazy.”

“It’s more about my stupid trial, which was so unfair,” she said, before saying that Cutler refused to consider her edit requests even though they had a “collaboration contract.”

Stewart also revealed that she may get to tell her story again on her own terms someday. “There’s another chance. Netflix has already asked me if I’d do another one,” she teased of a potential future documentary.