Martha Stewart's Return to Freedom
March 3, 2005 — -- Martha Stewart's felony conviction for obstructing justice in a stock sale marked one of the most precipitous falls in business and entertainment history, and the headlines of the day proclaimed as much. Another disgraced, egomaniacal chief executive officer bites the dust, right? Turns out, maybe not.
It's amazing what five months in a federal prison will do for a person's reputation. After she shed some pounds and made friends behind bars, the fickle media has cast a kinder light on Stewart in advance of her impending freedom. She'll soon be back in American living rooms as the public face of her company, if not a return to the CEO's chair. But while her personal fortunes have improved, is her up-and-down multimedia empire ready to follow?
Stewart, who last year tearily told ABC News' Barbara Walters that she didn't know why so many Americans seemed to hate her, is poised to walk out of a West Virginia prison early Friday morning, just a day short of a year after her conviction. It's unlikely her return will be a quiet one.
While she was incarcerated, it was announced that Stewart, 63, would return to television in two separate programs, a syndicated daytime show and a primetime spinoff of the popular Donald Trump vehicle, "The Apprentice." The Donald, himself no stranger to shameless self-promotion, has become one of Stewart's most vocal supporters, and the show will be helmed by producer and reality TV guru Mark Burnett. For Stewart, it's a good thing, indeed.
The domestic diva has apparently humbled herself to rake leaves and scrub floors at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp, not-so-ominously known as "Camp Cupcake." And that speaks nothing of the reported 20 pounds she lost on the federally imposed jailhouse diet or the cross-class friendships she forged with fellow inmates. If the American public forgives and forgets, it could be the 1990s all over again as the media ego stroke breathes life back into a once-toxic public image.
"She's looked after herself wonderfully," said Dennis McAlpine, a media and entertainment analyst and head of McAlpine Associates.
