Sitting down with Today for a recent interview, Ina Garten recalled the harsh words her abusive father once hurled at her as a young woman. “He said, ‘Nobody will ever love you,’” the cookbook author and TV personality — who just released her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens — confided to host Hoda Kotb. While wounded, the Barefoot Contessa chef, beloved by fans for her cozy cooking and cheery catchphrase, “How good is that?” had the last laugh.
“Do you know what I love?” she continued. “I love walking up Madison Avenue and somebody leans in and says, ‘I love you!’ It’s this great cosmic joke to me.”
Not everyone is feeling the love, however. Turns out fellow kitchen doyenne Martha Stewart has a serious beef with the Hamptons, New York-based Ina, 76 — and the 83-year-old isn’t afraid to go public with it. (So much so that her rep went out of her way to soft-pedal her accusations!)
“Martha never minces words, and as she’s gotten older, she feels there’s no reason to sugarcoat the truth,” a source exclusively tells Closer. “She didn’t get to where she is today by being nice.”
Martha Stewart’s Early Support of Ina Garten
At first, the domestic diva was a big fan. When Ina was starting out as the owner of a small store offering baked goods and prepared foods, Martha gave her a career-making opportunity when she featured the shop in the glossy pages of the mag Martha Stewart Living.
The pair became friends, and the more established Martha was then instrumental in Ina’s getting her first cookbook deal as well as producing her first (ill-fated) foray into TV cooking for the Food Network. (According to a profile in The New Yorker, Ina was put off by a director telling her not to talk with her mouth full and decided television wasn’t for her.)
Both can be testy when it comes to the extent to which Martha is responsible for Ina’s success. Recalling one New Year’s Eve party at Martha’s home, where the hostess theatrically whipped up tricky-to-make spun sugar, Ina expressed admiration. “She had made spun sugar!” she gushed. “She’s stunning!”
But the New Yorker writer later noted in her memoir, “No one needs to know how to make spun sugar.” Martha has had her own shadiness, saying Ina has “broad appeal,” while professing that she’s never actually cooked one of her recipes.
“Martha still likes to take the credit for getting Ina started in the cooking show business, which annoys Ina to no end,” says the insider. “Ina feels she would have had the same success regardless.”
While it’s not surprising that Martha — who hosted her own version of the competition show The Apprentice — can be ruthless, fans don’t see Ina that way. Puttering around her kitchen using “good olive oil” and anticipating how much her husband, Jeffrey, will love a dish, she seems to just want to feed everyone her favorite French Apple Tart.
But the insider says the truth is otherwise: “Ina and Martha are both extremely successful and have carved their own niche. But there has been friction.”
Bad Blood Between Martha Stewart and Ina Garten
Their rivalry would have remained just that if it hadn’t been for one deciding factor. In 2003, Martha — then the first self-made female billionaire in the U.S. and the head of Martha Stewart Omnimedia — was indicted for insider trading. (She avoided a loss of $45,673 in the stock market by acting on an illegal tip.) She was found guilty in 2004 and sentenced to a five-month prison term at the Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia. And she was banned for five years from serving as the head of any company.
That’s when the trouble started. Describing how she and Martha drifted apart, the Barefoot Contessa star was vague, alluding to the Martha Bakes star’s move to her estate in Bedford, New York.
Not so, said Martha. “When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,” she insisted. “I found that extremely distressing and extremely unfriendly.”
Ina later denied the accusation, and Martha’s publicist insisted she was “not bitter at all and there’s no feud,” but the insider says things are definitely icy.
“Obviously the slight still bothers her to this day,” the source says. “The cut went deep and Martha wanted everyone to know the ‘real reason’ Ina stopped speaking to her.”
Don’t expect them to make nice anytime soon. “They both possess the biggest egos around,” the insider concludes. “They treat each other as rivals in the food business.”
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