Martha Stewart Says She Had to Turn Down Hosting ‘SNL’ 20 Years Ago Due to a Possible Parole Violation: I Was ‘So Pissed’

Martha Stewart has regrets. No, not necessarily about that whole insider-trading thing: In 2005, she had to turn down hosting “Saturday Night Live.”

Stewart said during “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” that she was asked by “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels to host an episode of the sketch series in 2005 after her release from prison. Stewart served five months at the Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia after being convicted of fraud and insider trading. However, her hosting “SNL” would have violated her parole.

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“I wanted to, and they asked me as I was coming out of Alderson, that camp I was in for a while,” Stewart said. “And my parole officer wouldn’t give me the time to do it. That bastard! I still have his name and his number.”

She added, “I’m so pissed. Maybe some day. I would be amazing. Start a campaign!”

Stewart’s parole only allowed her leave her house for eight hours per day, which barred her from working on the series.

As “Saturday Night Live” is marking its 50th anniversary this year, which is also exactly 20 years since Stewart’s hosting offer, perhaps it’s only right for her to be on that stage. Stewart also has been back in the spotlight since being the subject of R.J. Cutler’s Netflix documentary “Martha.”

Stewart recently told the New York Times that her time in prison was “not that important” to her life story.

“The trial and the actual incarceration was less than two years out of an 83-year life,” Stewart said. “I considered it a vacation, to tell you the truth.”

And Stewart had some qualms about how she was presented in the film.

“Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him [Cutler] to get rid of those,” Stewart said. “And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them.”

The mogul also slammed the “lousy classical score” of the documentary, especially when her pal Snoop Dogg could have easily been part of the feature instead.

“I said to [director] R.J., ‘An essential part of the film is that you play rap music,’” Stewart said. “Dr. Dre will probably score it, or [Snoop Dogg] or Fredwreck. I said, ‘I want that music.’ And then he gets some lousy classical score in there, which has nothing to do with me.”

So, when will there be a “Saturday Night Live” episode with Stewart hosting and Snoop Dogg as the musical guest? Consider this the start of that campaign.

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