On Martha Stewart’s honeymoon, she kissed a man who wasn't her husband.

In her new documentary, Martha, the lifestyle icon opens up like never before, sharing intimate details about her marriage to Andrew Stewart, including a kiss with a stranger on their honeymoon that has stayed with her all these years.

Martha and Andrew, who married in 1961 when she was a 19-year-old Barnard undergrad and he was a Yale law student, were together for 30 years before their marriage came to an end in 1990.

Their union brought them one child, Alexis, but, as Martha shares, it was a relationship with complex layers, moments of infidelity, and profound emotional pain.

Image: Getty.

Martha recalls one unexpected experience during their European honeymoon that still stands out.

She describes visiting a cathedral in Florence on the night before Easter, alone, as her new husband, Andrew, had little interest in joining her. "He didn't have any interest in going to the Duomo with me," she says, adding how she was left to explore the iconic cathedral by herself.

"It was a very romantic place, crowded with tourists, and I met this very handsome guy. He didn't know I was married," Martha recounts.

"He was emotional, I was emotional. It was just because it was an emotional place. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. An expansive dome, so beautiful, and paintings all around you. It was nothing I had ever done before. And so why not kiss some stranger?" she recalls.

Insisting the kiss was innocent, Martha noted, "It was neither naughty nor unfaithful. It was just emotional of the moment. That's how I looked at it."

"It was exciting because it was a very emotional place. I wish we could all experience such an evening."

In a 1995 interview with People, Andrew opened up about being estranged from the pair's daughter, calling it "a source of tremendous pain," saying, "I think of her every single day, many times."

"I left her mother. It was very hard... I guess Lexi felt I left her. I certainly didn't feel that way. I love her a lot. I don't have any trouble getting along with my kids except for her. I know her mother was hurt when I left her. I was hurt too."

"I think she was sympathetic toward her mother, which I can understand," he divulged. "In the very few things I have seen, I've seen that anger in Lexi that I remember also seeing in Martha. It's upsetting to me. I guess I avoid it," he noted. 

Alexis and Martha Stewart. Image: Getty.

Martha revealed to People in 2020 that she and Andrew have not spoken since the split.

"Getting divorced was a terrible thing for me because we were the first to divorce in my family," Martha said. "And that we haven't spoken since the divorce is even more painful. But I'm very strong, and I'm very motivated to get on with life."

She added, "I have survived the rigours of time, of marriage, of childbearing, of building a business from scratch. I have survived very nicely, and I think I make the most of it."

The documentary goes on to reveal more about the challenges within her marriage.

Though their lives appeared picture-perfect—Martha building her catering business empire, Andrew thriving as a publishing executive—their relationship had grown fraught.

As Martha candidly shares, "He was not satisfied at home. I don't know how many different girlfriends he had during this time, but I think there were quite a few."

Despite her commitment to their marriage, Martha says her husband's affairs ultimately became too much to bear.

Image: Getty

Reflecting on her own standards of loyalty, she likens herself to a swan, devoted and steadfast. "I always said I was a swan, and like all swans, they are monogamous," she explains.

"I thought monogamy was admirable. I did. But it turned out that it didn't save a marriage."

Martha recalls one affair involving her husband's assistant, Robyn Fairclough, whom she had hired to work in her business and even offered a place to stay on their property.

"Robyn worked for me and she lost her apartment or something, and I said, 'Oh, you could move into the barn on the lower two acres.' We had a little apartment down there," Martha says. But, while she was travelling, Andrew began an affair with Robyn.

"It was like I put out a snack for Andy," she says, her words tinged with both sadness and bitterness. When she found out, Martha says she immediately confronted Robyn and kicked her out. "Andy betrayed me right on our property. Not nice," she recalls.

Eventually, Andrew left, asking Martha for a divorce, which was finalised in 1990.

"He's the one who wanted the divorce. Not I. He was throwing me away," Martha reflects. "I was 40 years old. I was gorgeous. I was a desirous woman, but he was treating me like a castaway."

Looking back, she admits that the pain was real, and that, in response, she also treated him "badly."

Today, Martha has strong words for any woman who finds herself in a similar situation.

"Young women, listen to my advice: if you're married and your husband starts to cheat on you, he's a piece of s**t. Get out of that marriage," she advises.

Off camera, we hear a producer press, "Didn't you have an affair early on in the relationship, when you were a stockbroker?"

"Uh, yeah," Stewart replies, caught off guard. "But I don't think Andy ever knew about that.

"I had a very brief affair with a very attractive Irish man," she says. "It was just nothing. It was nothing. I would never have broken up a marriage for it. It was nothing. It was nothing. It was like the kiss in the cathedral."

At the October 2024 premiere for the documentary, Martha told People that she had "no idea" if Andrew had seen the flick.

"I haven't talked to him for over 20 years. Sadly," she said.

Image: Getty.