Martha Stewart reveals she made $65 million in royalties from Kmart but 'fell in a hole and lost' one billion

For years, the Martha Stewart lifestyle was available to Kmart shoppers seeking to enjoy her home wares at an affordable rate. 

It was also particularly lucrative for Stewart, whose company was reaping $65 million in royalties at the peak of it's deal. 

Yet Stewart, 85, has now revealed her good luck eventually ran out - and she would go on to lose a billion dollars. 

'I fell in a hole, and I lost about a billion dollars. Before that, I was clearing $65,000,000 a year in royalties,' she said in a trailer for the upcoming MasterClass podcast, Other People's Business.

Martha Stewart Everyday, Stewart's collaboration with Kmart, was launched in 1997 and included a range of kitchen supplies, bedding, and garden furniture. 

Stewart did not specifically name her Kmart collaboration in the trailer, yet the numbers add up with what she earned from the department store.  

In 2008, Stewart's company, Martha Stewart Living, received $65 million in royalties from the department store - the highest they had ever earned from Kmart, Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

The lucrative compensation came just a few years after she overcame a downfall of Shakespearian proportions. 

Between 2004 to 2005, she served five months in prison for her role in a stock trading scandal.  

Stewart was sentenced to five months in federal prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and making false statements to federal investigators in connection with an insider trading case.

The homemaking expert reflected on her time behind bars in her Netflix documentary, Martha, and even provided filmmaker R. J. Cutler with personal letters she had written while she was in prison.

According to People, one excerpt of a letter that is read out during the documentary says: 'Today I saw two very well-dressed ladies walking and I breezed by them, remarking on the beautiful warm morning and how nice they looked.

'When I realized from the big silver key chain that they were guards, I lightly brushed the chain. Later I was called in to be told never, ever touch a guard without expecting severe reprimand,' Martha wrote.

She recalled apologizing for her actions, but because 'the incident was so minor when it occurred' she put it out of her mind. However, she didn't realize the punishment that was to follow.

'I was dragged into solitary for touching an officer. No food or water for a day. This was Camp Cupcake, remember? 

'That was the nickname. Camp Cupcake. It was not a cupcake,' Martha explains.

Throughout the documentary, a voiceover reads various letters, and writing about her first 150 days in prison, Martha says: 'Physical exam, stripped of all clothes. Squat, arms out, cough - embarrassing.'

She also says on camera: 'I had to do all that crap that you see in the movies. You can't even believe that that's what you're going through.'

Stewart has since said the prison stint gave her 'street cred.'

'Of course it gave me street cred,' she told People. 'I mean, you would never know what jail was like until you go to jail.'