Martha Stewart opened up about all aspects of her life in her Netflix documentary, including her relationship with billionaire businessman Charles Simoni.
Stewart, 83, dated Simone, 76, for 15 years after her divorce from Andrew Stewart. They even stayed together while Stewart spent 150 days in jail in 2004 on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
However, their relationship fell apart in 2008 when Simone left Stewart for another woman – the same thing that happened to her with Andrew.
In her documentary “Martha,” Stewart called Simone an “absolute genius” and said she lived “a different kind of life” when she was dating the businessman.
So who is Martha Stewart’s ex-boyfriend? Keep reading for everything you need to know about Charles Simoni.
He is from Hungary.
Simoni was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. His father was a physicist and his mother was a language teacher, according to a 2006 profile of Simone. The Seattle Times.
When he turned 17, Simoni moved to Denmark on a short-term visa to work as a programmer. He later moved to the United States and studied mathematics and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, before earning a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University.
Simoni officially became an American citizen in 1982.
“My dream was to get out of Hungary, go west and be free,” he once told reporters, according to The Seattle Times.
He worked at Microsoft.
Simoni joined Microsoft in 1981, just six years after Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company. He was Microsoft’s 40th employee.
While at Microsoft, Simoni helped develop Microsoft Word and Excel. He became one of Microsoft’s top developers. He was the chief architect for 12 years.
In 2002, Simonyi left Microsoft to co-found his own software company, called Intentional Software Corporation. Business developed platform for productivity apps.
Simonyi returned to Microsoft in 2017 when the company acquired Intentional Software Corporation. It is not known how much Simoni received for the sale.
According to ForbesSimoni became a billionaire in 2015. As of November 2024, he is worth $7.3 billion and is the 398th richest billionaire in the world.
He started dating Martha after the divorce.
Simoni and Stewart became friends in the early 1990s, after Stewart divorced her husband after nearly 30 years of marriage. The exes, who had a daughter together named Alexis, split after Andrew had an affair with Stewart’s former assistant.
“Young ladies, listen to my advice: If you’re married and you think you’re happily married and your husband starts cheating on you, he’s a piece of s–t,” she said, considering her marriage to Andrew. . “And look at it. It’s a piece of s – – t and get out of it. Get out of this marriage.”
However, Stewart admitted that years ago he kissed a stranger in the Duomo in Florence, Italy, during his honeymoon.
“I never marry for him. It was nothing,” he said. “It was like a kiss in a cathedral.”
Meanwhile, the celebrity chef and Simone were rumored to have started dating in 1993. Four years later, Simoni spoke publicly about Stewart for the first time, calling him her “good friend” in an interview with The Seattle Times.
The couple attended several events together in the late 1990s, including a dinner for the president of Hungary at the White House and the wedding of film producer Joel Silver in Italy. New York Magazine.
“We started going everywhere together. It was a different kind of life. He had his own jet plane, was building a boat in Germany, and I was on a boat with him,” Stewart said in his doc. Work had started.
He rarely visited Martha when she was in prison.
Simone stood by Stewart during his highly publicized trial that led to his imprisonment.
In 2004, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges after a five-week trial.
He spent five months behind bars in 2004 and 2005 at a federal prison camp in Alderson, West Virginia, for lying about the sale of ImClone shares.
Simoni reportedly told The Seattle Times that it was a “sad day” for Stewart when she was found guilty. He also said he disagreed with the decision and that Stewart was “being made an example of” by the US attorney.
While Simone supported Stewart during this period of her life, he only visited her once in prison, she claims in her documentary.
Stewart said her then-boyfriend “didn’t like hanging out with anybody in prison.” The documentary also shows a letter Stewart wrote to Simoni from prison that read, “I haven’t had an email or even a note from you in so long. I’d love to hear from you.”
After his release from prison in 2005, Stewart and Simoni continued their relationship for another three years.
He went into space.
Simoni dreamed of space travel since childhood. In April 2007, those dreams became a reality when he launched the first of his two journeys into space.
Stewart was a supporter of Simone’s trip. She even went to Kazakhstan to witness the launch of Simone in 2007. He was aboard Soyuz TMA-10 and became the fifth space tourist and the second Hungarian in space.
He returned to space on Soyuz TMA-14 in March 2009.
He left Martha for another woman.
Stewart revealed in her doc how Simone brutally broke up with her in 2008.
“We planned this elaborate trip. We were going to meet the president of Iceland and we were in bed and he said, ‘You know Martha, I’m going to get married, I’m going to marry Lisa. Am,'” Stewart recalled.
“I said, ‘Lisa who?’ He didn’t say a word to me,” he added.
According to Stewart, Simoni also told her in the conversation, “By the way, her parents don’t want me to talk to you again.”
Stewart told producers that her split from Simone felt like “a second divorce”.
“I thought it was the most horrible thing a person could do. How could a man who spent 15 years with me do that? What a stupid thing to do to someone you actually care about,” she said. said
Six months after dumping Stewart, Simoni became engaged to Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire. She was 32 years younger than Simone.
They got married in November 2008 and have two daughters.
Martha will note that she has difficulty expressing emotions in a relationship.
“I’m not very interested in knowing, ‘Oh Charles, how do you like this second moment?’ I don’t really care,” he said. Instead, she is far more interested in what people do and what men do.
“Martha” is streaming on Netflix.
Credit : nypost.com
