Get ready for a Martha Stewart character on the new season of ‘OITNB’
Big Orange Is The New Black news! While creator Jenji Kohan has kept the secrets of the next season under lockdown, she did let one amazing piece of information slip at the TIME 100 Gala! The third season, which premieres on June 12, will feature a character based on Martha Stewart.
The new character was inspired by the OITNB memoir by Piper Kerman, in which she wrote that the magnificent Martha Stewart almost served her prison stint at Danbury, the prison fictionalized as Litchfield in the show. Stewart was sent to West Virginia instead, but Kohan decided to take some liberties and we are intrigued, to say the least! We also know the character will be southern, although no word on who will be playing her.
IRL, Stewart was found guilty of felony charges related to an insider trading scandal, and was sentenced in 2004 to five months in a West Virginia prison.
Her prison nickname was “M. Diddy,” and she used her time while incarcerated to catch up on her reading, study Spanish, and even brush up on her decorating skills.
“She was in charge of decorating the prison for Christmas, and she had a $50 budget,” Stewart’s friend Memrie Lewis told Vanity Fair. “It was a totally different time for her. She took all of her Christmas cards, and everyone gathered around, and she read every one of them to these people. She made an event of it, to share her huge correspondence with people who didn’t have anyone writing to them.”
Martha, as it turns out, hasn’t seen OITNB yet. When asked about it at the TIME gala, she simply said, “I’ll look at it.” Hey, she’s lived it.
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