Martha Stewart is setting the record straight about her controversial Halloween costume: It wasn’t Craig Melvin’s fault.
The lifestyle magnate stopped by the “Today” show Friday to once again apologize for deciding to dress up as a person experiencing homelessness for Halloween and explain why she threw Melvin under the bus amid the backlash.
“I don’t blame you at all,” Stewart said during her sitdown with the NBC host. “It was a joke when I said I blamed you. It was stupid.”
Stewart posted — then quickly deleted — a photo of herself dressed up in torn and disheveled clothing and holding a makeshift sign that read “I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!!” on Oct. 31. She was photographed on a pristine porch along with her immaculately groomed chow chow and French bulldog. The backlash was swift.
“It was just stupid and I apologize,” the TV personality said Friday, noting that her grandson had warned her even before she shared the photograph on Instagram that it was “tone deaf.” “I was not making fun of anybody or making light of the great problems that face our country.”
According to the ex-convict lifestyle mogul, she had thrown together the outfit last minute because she had been too busy to plan a proper costume to attend a Halloween party.
Stewart had previously apologized for her gaffe. After telling Page Six in a statement that her costume was meant “to bring more awareness” to the issue of homelessness and that she was “distressed” it “offended people,” she posted a since-deleted apology to her Instagram Sunday acknowledging her first statement “didn’t go far enough.”
“Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry,” she wrote.
But Stewart added an extra layer to her story on Tuesday. During a speaking engagement in Orlando, Fla., the TV host blamed her costume on Melvin, who had spilled chocolate on the sweater she wore during her Oct. 30 appearance on “Today.” Stewart had worn a white sweater with an American flag and Olympic rings on the front in the episode to match with Melvin, who had dressed up like Olympics superfan and ambassador Snoop Dogg.
“Why was I dragged into it?” Melvin questioned Stewart during her most recent appearance.
“I was making a joke,” Stewart said. “I was giving a talk and I just made a joke that you had spilled chocolate on me so I couldn’t wear that costume, which I had planned to wear on Halloween night to this party.”
“And that became part of the story,” Melvin said, before confirming that he had apologized for the spilled chocolate when it had happened. “But to be clear, there was no connection to [the spilled chocolate] and the costume later?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She added she understood she needed to “pay closer attention to social issues” moving forward.
“I’m aware of all those social issues, as you can imagine, and I care desperately about all the problems facing us,” she said. “But I made a mistake. I mean, I was stupid. … I’m so sorry, and I hope that my followers and my fans and the rest of America forgives me for doing something that was not meant in any way to be a bad thing.”
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