Martha Stewart Confirmed to Speak at Sydney’s Vivid Festival
Image: Vivid Sydney/supplied
In news that will delight gays across the country, Vivid Sydney has confirmed lifestyle icon Martha Stewart as its Global Storyteller for 2025.
NSW Minister for Jobs and Tourism The Hon. Steve Kamper, praised Stewart’s enduring influence.
“Martha Stewart is a powerhouse of innovation and entrepreneurship, and her inclusion in Vivid Sydney 2025 reaffirms the festival’s ability to bring the world’s boldest characters to our Harbour City,” Kamper said.
Stewart rose to fame in 1982 with the release of her first book Entertaining, and has remained a cultural force ever since—appearing on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover in 2023 and starring in the Netflix documentary “Martha” in 2024.
Unsuspecting gay icon
Stewart has a long history of LGBTQIA+ allyship, and it helps that her refined tastes and effortless elegance resonate with queer sensibilities.
Years before marriage equality was on the table, her magazine Martha Stewart Living featured gay people throughout the 80s and 90s, bringing important queer visibility into mainstream media.
In 2009, Martha Stewart Weddings spotlighted its first gay wedding, that of Connecticut couple Andrew Shulman and Jeremy Hooper, who were married a year after the state had legalised same sex marriage. In doing so, the publication became one of the first mainstream wedding magazines to cover a queer couple, treating the union the same way they treated all their weddings.
Speaking to PrideSource in 2017, Stewart said that it was important to her to champion same sex representation at a time where it wasn’t all that common.
“I think it’s absolutely a fact that all men are created equal, and so I just treated people like equals my entire life. Equals in every single way, no matter what their proclivity is or what their sexuality is, or their colour or their race. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Naturally, the gays in her life have invited her to their own celebrations, because the only thing better than a gay wedding, is a gay wedding with Martha Stewart in attendance.
“I’ve been to a lot! I mean, I have a lot of gay editors, both male and female. You know, every wedding is special to me,” she said.
“I don’t differentiate a gay wedding from a straight wedding. I just don’t differentiate.”
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