Martha Stewart turns 85 on Monday, August 3. And if you have followed her career over the years, you already know that a birthday like this one comes with quite a story.
Long before she became the queen of home entertaining, Stewart worked as a model. Then she built a career as a Wall Street stockbroker. In 1976, she walked away from finance and started a catering business out of her own kitchen.
That leap changed everything. Her first cookbook, Entertaining, became a bestseller. A lifestyle empire followed: books, television, magazines, home collections, and business ventures too numerous to count. She has authored more than 100 books in all.
But some of her most talked-about moments have come in recent years. In 2023, she appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, becoming the oldest cover model in the magazine’s history. She was 81 years old.
She has not slowed down since. New television projects, a podcast, and product lines have all kept her name front and center in food, entertaining, and home design.
Earlier this year, she reunited with her longtime friend Snoop Dogg as a correspondent for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Speaking with People magazine before the Games, she joked that while she was not bringing a date to Italy, she was “waiting to meet my Italian prince.”
People often call her career one long reinvention. Stewart pushes back on that word.
“I just call it evolution,” she told the Conferences for Women. “I don’t call it reinventing. I just call it an ordinary evolution. You know, mankind has evolved in many, many different ways, as do animals. And evolution is good. I just think that we all have it in ourselves to evolve.”
It is a thought worth sitting with on your own birthday, or on any ordinary Tuesday. The woman who built a brand recognized around the world says she did it the same way anyone does anything. One step at a time. Always moving forward.
Happy 85th, Martha. Our generation has been watching, and we are not done yet.
