Martha Stewart is truly having a banner year — all things considered. Not only did she host the 2021 Puppy Bowl with bestie Snoop Dogg, but she has also perfected the smokey eye look in a year when absolutely no one is even thinking about wearing eyeshadow.
But then, out of nowhere, disaster struck: Stewart was beside herself — nay, horrified — to discover an emphatically false statement printed about her in the New York Post.
On Saturday, the Post published an article on author Sean Flynn’s new book Why Peacocks? An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World’s Most Magnificent Bird. In it laid an outright lie: that Stewart had 16 peacocks living on her 153-acre farm in upstate New York. In the aftermath of this falsehood, Stewart took to Twitter to share her truth, which is that she actually owns 21 peacocks — not 16. And no, they do not smell.
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“The nypost again 'fake news',” Stewart wrote. “They have a story on peacocks today and say I have sixteen on my farm I actually have 21 of these glorious birds whose house is impeccable. They do not smell. They are so clean! Their voices are loud but such fun to hear. They are so friendly”.
The Post has since (thankfully) updated its story to reflect the actual number of peacocks that Stewart owns, as well as information about their upkeep. An editor’s note at the end of the article reads, “This story originally reported that Martha Stewart has 16 peacocks. Stewart clarified via Twitter that she actually has 21 'glorious' and impeccably clean peacocks.”
But let's backtrack for a minute. It should come as absolutely no surprise that Martha Stewart is raising a gorgeous flock of animals on her massive piece of land — and the New York Post could easily have fact-checked this info — and yet, here we are, one Peacockgate later.
In truth, Stewart is a longtime animal lover and has added to her family of peacocks over the years. She’s spoken publicly about them since at least 2017, back when she only had two. Her peafowls even have their own dedicated vertical on her blog, where she details what it's like to take care of each and every 21 of them.
And it's not just peacocks: Stewart is also an animal parent to a host of dogs, cats, horses, and pigeons, although she’s clearly got a soft spot for colourful birds. In addition to her 21 peacocks, which hail from countries including India and Sri Lanka, she has roosters, turkeys, geese, and a mute swan she took in back in April.
Now, the only question that remains: With all this information out there about Martha Stewart's peacocks, how could the Post have gone so wrong?