Inside Martha Stewart's gruelling prison stint with two-word nickname

This year marks 20 years since Martha Stewart walked out of Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia after completing her five-month prison sentence. When most people think of the beloved TV cook, they picture her in her country estate baking cakes and decorating eggs for Easter. But it's fair to say this is a far cry away from the woman she is when the cameras stop rolling.

As the doting mum celebrates her 84th birthday with her nearest and dearest, let's take a deep dive inside her surprising stay behind bars. When her career was at its peak, her media empire, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, had gone public, making her the first female self-made billionaire in the U.S.

But she soon found herself in hot water after selling her stake in ImClone Systems, a biopharmaceutical company in December 2001.

When investigators questioned her on the trade in early 2002, she and her stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, maintained that they had no insider information that prompted the sale.

However, prosecutors later accused the TV chef and Bacanovic of acting on non-public knowledge when they made the trade and then lying to the feds about it.

After a highly publicised trial in 2004, Stewart was found guilty on charges including conspiracy and obstruction of justice. She was sentenced to five months in prison and two years of probation.

Last year, Martha opened up about her time behind bars in a Netflix documentary, in which she shared some of the personal letters she had written inside.

One letter documented a particularly nasty run-in with two prison guards that landed her in solitary confinement. She wrote: "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 realised 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."

The culinary expert recalled apologising for her actions, but because "the incident was so minor when it occurred, she forgot all about it. She was completely oblivious to the punishment that would follow.

She went on: "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."

She went on to recall the brutal reality of the first 150 days in prison, which included a gruelling physical exam where she was "stripped of all clothes [and told to] squat, arms out, cough - embarrassing."

In another excerpt, the businesswoman described what her cell was like at Alderson Federal Prison Camp. She wrote: "My room contains an old double-decker bedstead metal spring and metal frame.

"The springs are very saggy and thus an unhealthy bed set. I would actually prefer the top but over 62-years-old and you automatically are given the lower bunk."

Stewart also revealed the dire food served to prisoners while she was locked up. She fumed: "What worries me is the very poor quality of the food and the unavailability of fresh anything as there are many starches and many carb, many fat foods. No pure anything. Everything was terrible."

But despite the negative press around her prison sentence, Stewart rebounded. She kept her company intact, wrote a book and debuted two new television shows within less than a year after her release from prison in March 2005 - and she hasn't slowed down since. The TV icon attributes her post-prison soar to her refusal to let her jail time define her character.

Speaking to Katie Couric back in 2017, she explained: "One thing I do not ever want is to be identified or I don't want that to be the major thing of my life. I was a strong person to start and thank heavens I was and I can still hold my head up high and know that I'm fine."