Martha Stewart on losing her virginity at 19: 'He was very aggressive'

Martha Stewart fell in love with her ex-husband Andy Stewart on their first date.

In the new documentary from Netflix Martha, The culinary icon remembers meeting Andy when she was a student at Barnard College in New York City and he was attending law school at Yale. The couple began dating after Martha's classmate and Andy's sister met them.

“He picked me up in his little yellow Mercedes limousine,” she recalls in the film. “I’ve never been in a Mercedes before.”

Martha, 83, grew up in Nutley, New Jersey, as one of six children. The popular, tall blonde spent her teenage years as a model to provide extra income for her parents “Big Martha”, a school teacher, and Edward, a failed businessman.

Martha remembers going out to dinner with Andy on her first date when she was 19 years old. “He was very polite and handsome and had traveled extensively. It was exciting to meet a cultured young man. And he had an American Express card, which was a really big deal back then,” she says.

When the two met, Martha found Andy “fascinating, playful and kind” and by the end of the meal she was “madly in love.” Martha says Andy started sending her money every week for a train ticket to visit him in New Haven, Connecticut.

“I had never slept with anyone before,” she says. “He was very aggressive and I liked it.”

When Andy proposed, Martha said, marriage seemed “such a natural thing.” But her father did not approve of the relationship. “I went home and told my dad, and my dad hit me,” she remembers. “And he slapped me hard in the face and said 'No.' You won't marry him. He's a Jew.'”

“I remember getting that slap,” Martha continues. “I wasn't surprised at all because he was a fanatic and impulsive.” Martha says she told her father: “I'm getting married, no matter what you think.”

She made her own wedding dress for her wedding in 1961 and welcomed her daughter Alexis four years later.

“The wedding day was very happy,” she says. “Very nice. It was the beginning of my life.”

The documentary also details the infidelity in her marriage and reveals that both she and Andy had affairs. Martha recalls kissing a “very handsome man” in Florence Cathedral during her honeymoon and how she had a “very brief affair” with a “very attractive Irishman” in the late '60s while working as a stockbroker.

“It was nothing,” she insists. “I would never have broken up a marriage for that.”

Andy told producers he “didn’t stray” until she did. “I don't know how many different girlfriends he had during that time, but I think it was quite a few,” says Martha, noting that an affair took place at the couple's estate in Westport, Connecticut, while she was writing cookbooks.

Martha and Andy divorced in 1990 and have not spoken to each other in over 20 years.

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Martha told PEOPLE in 2020 that her divorce was hard on her.

“Divorce was a terrible thing for me because we were the first in my family to get divorced,” she said. “And the fact that we haven’t spoken since the divorce is even more painful. But I am very strong and very motivated to carry on with life.”

Martha is now streaming on Netflix.