No Holds Barred for Alexis Stewart

Nov. 25, 2008— -- "Martha Stewart Living," the series that made Martha Stewart famous, is getting a second life on television, but this time around it's not just all about ribbons and cookie cutters. This time "Martha Stewart Living" isn't so much about Martha at all but rather her daughter, Alexis Stewart, and her friend Jennifer Koppelman Hutt.

The show, called "Whatever Martha," airs on the Fine Living Network. Alexis Stewart is blunt, risque and willing to say almost anything on TV. Her chatty cohost, Jennifer Koppelman Hutt, is the daughter of businessman Charles Koppelman who currently serves as chairman of the board of directors at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

How did the whole show come about? Martha herself dreamed it up and acts as executive producer.

"Well, my mother can't sleep, and ... she used to watch, and maybe recently or a year or two ago, was watching 'Mystery Science Theater,' and she just loves it for some reason. It relaxes her. So she said, 'You know, it would be funny if you guys took my show, and commented on it like those little alien guys in 'Mystery Science Theater.''' So that's what happened," Stewart said. "I think she knows people make fun of her anyway. It might as well be people who love her."

On the show and in real life, Stewart calls her mother Martha, which seems to play into the media's portrayal of their relationship as sometimes turbulent and sometimes strained.

"I feel too old to stand in a crowd and yell 'Mom,'" said Stewart.

Stewart reveals that although she and her mother are close, they are by no means alike. Stewart said her mother saves things while she throws them away. And while Martha lives in an exquisitely elegant farmhouse in Bedford, N.Y., her daughter resides in a multimillion dollar penthouse in Manhattan, nearly all gray, with no personal photos. In the kitchen, the mother-daughter duo are quite different too.

"I cook what people want to eat, and my mother makes things that will impress them," Stewart said as she mindfully cleaned the kitchen, perhaps not surprising for the daughter of the doyenne of domesticity. "One day I was having people over and it was the middle of winter and she said what are you making, and I said I was going to make fancy macaroni and cheese and she said 'ehh.'"