Martha Stewart's Documentary Director Responds to Her Criticism

While he wanted to honor Stewart's privacy, he did divulge one particularly emblematic conversation they had over the phone.

"I will tell you that she called me once—there was something she needed a favor for—and I said, 'Of course, Martha! I'll be happy to do it, but you need to be nice to me.'" Cutler recalled. "And she said, 'Oh, nevermind, I'll ask someone else.' And hung up the phone."

While Cutler and Stewart have major differences of opinion when it comes to how the documentary turned out, the filmmaker did express empathy for how difficult it is for someone to turn over the control when telling their life story.

"It takes a tremendous amount of courage on her part to trust me," he explained. "I respect that. And in return, I share the film with her and have conversations with her about the film. If she has ideas that I think are good ideas and will help the film that I’m making, I’ll take a good idea from anybody. Believe me."

"It’s very, very hard to be a subject in one of these films and to look at it with any sort of objectivity," Cutler continued. "And so, this is a process I understand and you have to be empathetic to the subject. But that doesn’t mean that she’s in control of the movie."

Stewart had recently gone public with her grievances about the film, taking particular issue with its ending.

"Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those," she told The New York Times Oct. 30, the same day the documentary came out. "And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them."

The Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia founder added that "R.J. had total access, and he really used very little. It was just shocking." She also called out his focus on her 2004 obstruction of justice trial, which led to her serving nearly give months in federal prison.

“It was not that important,” she said. “The trial and the actual incarceration was less than two years out of an 83-year life. I considered it a vacation, to tell you the truth… the trial itself was extremely boring.”

“Even the judge fell asleep,” Stewart added. “R.J. didn’t even put that in. The judge was asleep at the bench. I wrote it in my diary every day."

As Cutler pointed out, the cookbook author did acknowledge some elements of the film that she appreciated.

"So many girls have already told me—young women—that watching it gave them a strength that they didn’t know they had,” she told NYT. “And that’s the thing I like most about the documentary. It really shows a strong woman standing up for herself and living through horror as well as some huge success."

It's opinion that she doubled down on a few weeks later.

"I thought it was a good representation of a 20th and 21st-century woman," Stewart told Drew Barrymore on the Nov. 12 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, "and giving hope and caring to the female gender in America."

Keep reading for more about Stewart's life.