Martha Stewart is “speaking up” about ICE.
And the original homemaking influencer said her 14-year-old granddaughter, Jude, inspired her to do so in a new Instagram post.
“My granddaughter Jude wrote me a note yesterday, I took it to heart and posted,” Stewart wrote over a screengrab of a message exchange. The text from Jude read, simply, “I’m not sure it’s excusable to not be speaking up right now.”
“I am disheartened and sad each and every day that we cannot demonstrate our sympathy for the beleaguered, that we are told immigrants, which most of us are or descended from, are unwelcome,” Stewart wrote in text inserted over the exchange.
“That we cannot show our frustration in peaceful demonstrations, and that we can be attacked and even killed by Federal troops. Things must and have to change quickly and peacefully,” she concluded.
The Daily Beast broke the story of Stewart quietly endorsing Kamala Harris in September 2024, breaking a long tradition of remaining neutral on political matters. “Kamala,” Stewart said when asked who she would be voting for at the Retail Influencer CEO Forum that year. Her reasoning, she said, was that she wants a president “who doesn’t hate New York” and “doesn’t hate democracy.”
Stewart, 84, has been critical of Trump since his The Apprentice days, when they both had variations of the reality series airing at the same time. Stewart endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, when Trump ran the first time, telling CNN, “We just can’t have a country run by someone who is totally unprepared for what comes.”
After Trump won that election, Stewart walked back her comments and said she looked forward to what it would be like to have a “true entrepreneur in the White House.”
Stewart has kept her criticisms of Trump in the years following his election wins to herself—but the recent killings of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, 37, as well as suburban mom of three, Renée Good, also 37, activated the star’s granddaughter, who Stewart wrote Monday is “sensitive to what is going on in our country, as we all should be.”
Stewart’s comments come at a time when some fans are looking to their favorite celebrities to condemn Trump’s ICE deployments across the country, which have resulted in the deaths and detainments of U.S. citizens. Pop star Billie Eilish called out her fellow stars in a post over the weekend, asking, “Hey, my fellow celebrities, u gonna speak up? Or…”