Martha Stewart Made Macy’s Execs ‘Sick To Their Stomachs’
Martha Stewart‘s soured relationship with Macy’s has been the topic of a recent lawsuit, and execs from the department store chain have spoken in an unusually emotional way about the doyenne of domesticity.
It seems Martha Stewart’s relationship with Macy’s went south when (like in many relationships) one party wanted to keep it exclusive and the other wanted to play the field. In this case, Martha seems to have been keeping her options open, while Macy’s wanted a firmer commitment.
Stewart’s company faced off against Macy’s in New York State Court in Manhattan yesterday to discuss the less than amiable dissolution of their coupling, and it seems that Macy’s is still feeling jilted after the soured affair.
Business Insider reports that Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren had a good thing going by his account — until he learned that fondant-rolling floozy had been seeing JC Penney behind his back! Everyone knows they’ve got a thing going with Ellen DeGeneres!
Lundgren mused over the broken shards of Macy’s relationship with Stewart, like bits of a shattered, robin’s egg blue dinnerware collection piece. He said:
“I was completely shocked and blown away. I was literally sick to my stomach … The thought that it would be good for Macy’s is so far from anything I could comprehend. I’m upset right now talking about it.”
Lundgren continued, saying he was forced to terminate the sad call with Stewart under decidedly unpleasant circumstances, noting he hung up on Martha and adding:
“I don’t have a personal relationship with Martha Stewart … I haven’t responded to her since that phone call and I don’t intend to.”
Lundgren isn’t the only Macy’s exec to feel maligned by Martha. Macy’s merchandising EVP of home Laurene Gandolfo also became “emotional” when discussing the betrayal. To JC Penney! Of all mall stores! Gandolfo explained:
“I really put myself out there for these people … Nobody told me to train their designers, nobody told me I had to take them to our factories. I trusted … the people I was working with [at Martha Stewart] … I was trying to help and felt like they stabbed me in the back.”
And the home goods hussyism didn’t stop there. Macy’s merchandising group president Leonard Marcus was similarly shaken by Martha’s perfidy. He testified:
“When I heard about it, I was shocked, I was angered, I was ticked off … The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘I cannot believe [it], this is exactly what I was afraid of when we did this contract, that we were going to do a deal and then somehow we’re not going to have the exclusive rights.’ I was flabbergasted.”
As Martha Stewart and Macy’s duke it out in a New York courtroom, Lundgren isn’t above begging his sweet, sweet Martha to return — he pled yesterday, admitting “I need the Martha Stewart business to be exclusive.”
