Martha Stewart is poor. Didn’t you know? She is homeless and filthy and hungry and has excellent taste in candles, which are now on sale.
This is Halloween 2026, when one of the richest women on Earth—the world’s first self-made female billionaire—dressed as a homeless woman, her face smudged with dirt, a sign beckoning for food. Hopefully help is on the way. The titan of home decor unveiled her costume in an Instagram carousel hawking her flameless Halloween candles, available on QVC. She is on brand even when off brand.
The bit was short-lived. It quickly became a casualty of internet commentators, some of whom were not impressed by the delta between Stewart’s wealth and the lack thereof held by those who live the reality she briefly cosplayed. You mean to say a richperson would pretend to be poor? In this economy?
Stewart deleted the post and attempted to make it right. The costume was supposed to “bring more awareness to the very serious subject of homelessness,” she said in a statement. This subject “continues to remain one of America’s greatest challenges and ongoing crises,” she added, “something that I care deeply about and I have spent a significant amount of time and effort supporting charities that combat this ongoing social epidemic.”
I do not know anyone who is unaware of homelessness, though it is possible such a group exists. If awareness was the goal, perhaps Stewart could have suited up in a construction vest and mummified her body in red tape while tossing off citations like she does one of her salads. I may even have bought a candle.
There’s always next year. This year, however, it is too late. What can Stewart do to atone for this, then?
On the one hand, nothing. Her apology will not soothe the loudest people who were angry with her. That’s usually how this goes. Often it just makes it worse.
On the other hand, also nothing. Halloween costumes allow the wearer to embody something they are not. That is, by definition, what a costume is. Martha Stewart is not homeless. While she is famous in part for gardening, I still picture the dirt ricocheting off her face when she pulls up flowers, because she is Martha Stewart. That is not to diminish the misery of being homeless, or the importance of compassion toward those experiencing it.
If this is the line we are to draw, though, we should probably cancel Halloween, because it is difficult to see how the holiday’s tradition survives that level of scrutiny. This year, Elizabeth Holmes—the entrepreneur convicted of fraud in connection with her bogus medical startup Theranos—was a popular choice, notwithstanding that her actions allegedly cheated people out of millions and millions of dollars. People have dressed as Jeffrey Dahmer, a name synonymous with “serial murderer.” They have dressed as Satan himself (but make it sexy). The author of this piece dressed as an engorged duck on his way to slaughter. Are we really drawing the line at homeless people?
Stewart, of course, is no stranger to controversy. Nor is she a stranger to being misunderstood. Her most notable black mark—that 2004 criminal conviction—was not, as many people believe, for insider trading. She didn’t even go to trial for that. It was for lying to investigators.
Above all, though: She is no stranger to bouncing back. Stewart achieved what feels like the impossible: reclaiming her spot as America’s spotless hostess after spending time in federal prison. This is not a trajectory we typically associate with people famous for icing cookies and curating the perfect dinner party. But that’s Martha Stewart. Her legacy is defined by identities that appear wildly at odds yet somehow fuse into an unlikely whole; her closet includes prison khakis beside pressed aprons. In that way, what costume is more appropriate for her than the one she wore this year?
