Martha Stewart she fell in love with her ex-husband Andy Stewart on their first date.

In The new Netflix documentary Marten, The culinary icon remembers meeting Andy when she was a student at Barnard College in New York City and he was attending law school at Yale. The couple began dating after Martha’s classmate and Andy’s sister set them up.

“He picked me up in his little yellow Mercedes sedan,” he recalls in the film. “I’ve never been in a Mercedes before.”

Martha, 83, grew up one of six children in Nutley, New Jersey. The popular, tall blonde spent her teenage years modeling to provide additional income for her parents, “Big Martha”, a school teacher, and Edward, a failed businessman.

Martha remembers going out to dinner with Andy on their first date when she was 19 years old. “He was very educated and handsome, and had traveled a lot. It was exciting to meet a sophisticated young man. And I had an American Express card, which was very important in those days,” he says.

As the couple got to know each other, Martha found Andy “intriguing, playful and personable” and by the end of the meal she was “madly in love.” Martha says Andy began sending her money to buy a train ticket to visit him in New Haven, Connecticut, every week.

“I’d never slept with anyone before this,” he says. “He was very aggressive and I liked it.”

When Andy proposed, Martha says marriage seemed “a very natural thing.” But his father did not approve of the relationship. “I went home and told my dad, and my dad slapped me,” he remembers. “And he slapped me hard across the face and said, ‘No. You’re not going to marry him. He’s Jewish.’”

“I remember getting that slap,” Martha continues. “It didn’t surprise me at all, because he was fanatical and impulsive.” Martha says she told her father, “I’m getting married no matter what you think.”

She made her own wedding dress for her 1961 nuptials and welcomed her daughter Alexis four years later.

“The wedding day was very happy,” he says. “Very nice. It was the beginning of my life.”

The documentary also details infidelity in her marriage, revealing that both she and Andy had affairs. Martha recalls kissing a “very handsome guy” in the Duomo in Florence during her honeymoon and a “very brief fling” with a “very handsome Irish man” while working as a stockbroker in the late ’60s.

“It was nothing,” he insists. “I would never have broken up a marriage over that.”

Andy told producers that he “didn’t stray” until she did. “I don’t know how many different girlfriends he had during this time, but I think it was quite a few,” Martha says, noting that an affair took place. on the couple’s property in Westport, Connecticut, while writing cookbooks.

Martha and Andy divorced in 1990 and have not spoken for more than 20 years.

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Martha told PEOPLE in 2020 that her divorce was difficult for her.

“Getting divorced was a terrible thing for me, because we were the first to get divorced in my family,” she said. “And the fact that we haven’t spoken since the divorce is even more painful. But I’m very strong and I am very motivated to continue with life.“.

marten now streaming on Netflix.