Martha Stewart’s Netflix Return Draws a Quieter Reaction Than Her Meghan Sussex Criticism

Martha Stewart has spent decades as one of America’s biggest names in food, entertaining and lifestyle television, which is why her decision to question Meghan Sussex’s move into the same space got so much attention. Her comments were picked up across US entertainment media and social platforms, where they were treated like a verdict from someone who supposedly knew exactly what a successful lifestyle show should look like.

Now Martha Cooks is on Netflix in the United States, and we finally have a concrete American benchmark for how the show performed in its first week. The series debuted on the platform on August 25 with all five seasons and 50 episodes available to stream, but Netflix’s own US Top 10 for August 24–30 does not include it. The list ran from Death of the Pastor’s Wife at No. 1 to Let’s Marry Harry: The Reunion at No. 10, with Martha Cooks nowhere on the chart.

Martha herself framed the Netflix move as a chance to bring her cooking catalogue and podcast to a wider audience, describing the platform as the right place to expand the reach of her work.

In addition, Martha Cooks just debuted on the platform on August 25. You can now binge all five seasons of the show, a total of 50 episodes. In the series, Martha shares her favorite recipes, cooking techniques, and how-to instructions, alongside acclaimed chefs, friends, and special guests, from her kitchen on her Bedford farm.

“I’m delighted to bring my podcast to Netflix, and with that, introduce the medium of video to the series,” Martha said in a statement. “Netflix is the perfect partner to share and amplify the thoughtful and informative conversations the show is known for with an even greater audience.”

Martha Stewart

And yet the conversation looks remarkably different. There has been no avalanche of think-pieces asking whether Martha has lost her touch, no endless dissection of her recipes and no rush to turn one week of viewing data into a referendum on her entire career. For someone who was so comfortable questioning another woman’s place in the lifestyle space, Martha’s own streaming performance has received considerably gentler treatment.

That is what makes the timing so awkward. If you are going to publicly cast doubt on someone else’s credibility in a space, then your own work should be able to withstand the same level of scrutiny.

The more revealing story may be how little scrutiny Martha is receiving now that her own Netflix performance (or lack thereof) is available for everyone to see.

What changed my view of Martha Stewart was not that she criticised Meghan Sussex, but how unnecessary the criticism felt. Questioning whether Meghan’s move into lifestyle content even made sense came across as a spiteful dig at another woman working in the same space, especially coming from someone who rebuilt her own public image after a criminal conviction and went on to dominate lifestyle media. There was never any real need for her to diminish another woman working in the same space. Lifestyle media is not a winner-takes-all industry. There is room for different generations, different audiences and different approaches.

That is why the timing of Martha’s comments now feels especially immature and petty. Her own Netflix push has arrived with far less noise than the frenzy that followed the now Emmy-nominated With Love, Meghan, and the numbers show just how much attention Meghan’s series generated.

Parrot Analytics found that demand for With Love, Meghan was 8.9 times higher than the average TV series in the United States over the measured 30-day period, placing it in the “outstanding” range.

The wider conversation was just as intense. Meghan used Le Creuset cookware on With Love, Meghan, and interest in the brand surged around the show’s release. One social-listening snapshot recorded 6,300 mentions, 65,600 engagements and a potential reach of 3.2 billion.

Whatever people thought of With Love, Meghan, it did not disappear quietly into Netflix’s catalogue. Season one entered Netflix’s US Top 10 and debuted at No. 10 on the global English-language chart with 2.6 million views and 12.6 million hours watched. Netflix later reported 5.3 million views for the series during the first half of 2025. Ted Sarandos also described Meghan as “underestimated in terms of her influence on culture” and said she and Harry were “overly dismissed.”

There is one important distinction. Martha Cooks originally launched in 2022, and Netflix is now giving an existing series a new streaming home alongside Martha’s newer podcast content. This is therefore not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison with a new Netflix production like With Love, Meghan. But that does not erase the double standard in the coverage. The media had no trouble treating every available metric around Meghan as evidence of success or failure. Martha’s first-week Netflix performance deserves at least a fraction of that curiosity.

And judging by the reaction online, some of the people who eagerly amplified Martha when she was taking shots at Meghan do not appear particularly interested in supporting Martha herself. It feels more like some people only became interested in Martha when she gave them another reason to go after Meghan.