Martha Stewart’s jail bestie lifts the lid on their shut friendship behind bars – and the way the home diva ‘betrayed’ her

The first time Lisa Guarino met Martha Stewart was embarrassing to say the least.

‘I pulled back a curtain and I saw this white naked butt right in front of my face,’ the 62-year-old ex-convict tells DailyMail.com. 

When the woman turned around, Guarino looked up and found herself apologizing to none other than the domestic diva.

Stewart, now 83, had just arrived at FPC Alderson, a women’s minimum-security federal prison in West Virginia often referred to as ‘Camp Cupcake’, to start her five-month sentence on October 8, 2004. 

Her arrival had attracted a crowd of curious inmates trying to sneak a glimpse of the star as she changed into her prison scrubs in the building of the laundry unit.

Guarino herself was intrigued, eventually entering the building through a ‘back way’, where she would have her unexpected encounter. 

She offered to take Martha out the rear exit, to which she agreed.

‘Martha and I hit it off from that moment on,’ Guarino recalls, describing Stewart as her ‘best friend’ with whom she ‘cried, laughed, and ate together’ for the months they were housed in the same facility. 

Now, 20 years after they shared prison walls and meals together, Guarino, once known as ‘Boston’s cocaine queenpin’ has revealed how Stewart has since turned her back on their friendship – and an alleged promise of financial support – in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com. 

Guarino, whose 4ft 11in build earned her the street name ‘Little Italy‘, was serving time for possessing and intending to distribute more than five pounds of cocaine.

Stewart, meanwhile, had just been convicted of four counts for her role in a stock trading scandal. She was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.

Guarino says she took Stewart under her wing, helping her adapt to prison life, and even preparing meals for her using smuggled kitchen supplies. 

She recalled cooking ‘dirty pasta’ in the microwave – a mix of noodles, herbs, and canned fish – which she claims quickly became one of Stewart’s favorites.

The 159-acre federal prison is akin to a college campus, with no barbed wire fencing, and where inmates have access to TVs, and recreational activities such as ceramic classes and gardening. 

Stewart was assigned housing in one of the three ‘mansions’ on the grounds, each ‘mansion’ has around 100 two-person bunk-bed style rooms.

This relatively cushy unit was reserved for newbies and inmates with shorter prison sentences. Guarino, however, was housed in the dormitories, also known as the ‘ghetto’.

Guarino says the mogul was far from prison smart and took a while to grasp basic survival tactics behind bars. 

At the start of her sentence she asked Guarino for pencils and writing paper among other things. 

‘Martha didn’t realize that you had to buy these items through commissary – and there are only certain days each week, prisoners can order these items – or get them from other inmates,’ Guarino explained.

And in prison, if you borrow a pen or writing paper from someone, you’ll end up owing double as ‘interest’, she added. 

‘Martha had no understanding of this and when I tried to explain it to her, she just couldn’t grasp the concept.’

According to Guarino it was evident that Stewart was used to ordering people around and having people do things for her at the drop of a hat – an expectation that would cause issues for her behind bars. 

‘There was a certain group of inmates who fawned over her, but then there was another group of inmates that didn’t like her, for several reasons like her economic status and attitude.’

The two saw each other frequently and just a few weeks into Martha’s sentence Guarino was transferred to the ‘mansion’ after applying to go into drug treatment at another prison to shorten her sentence. 

She wasn’t housed in the same ‘mansion’ as Martha, but was close enough.

‘I cooked for Martha nearly every night,’ said Guarino. There was one microwave in each of the ‘mansions’ you had to sign up for an assigned time to use it.

‘This was our only way to cook. I showed Martha how to use items purchased in commissary or better yet smuggled out of the kitchen to make eatable prison food with a microwave.’

As well as the dirty pasta, Guarino made a prison version of homemade lemon or peach pie using crushed cookies from commissary as the crust, and powdered Kool-Aid mix combined with whatever canned fruit was available. 

‘You let it sit and a few hours later you had your prison pie. She really liked the lemon pie. 

‘Martha was amazed with what you can do with the microwave.’

Guarino says the pair quickly formed a close bond, sharing stories and confiding in one another about their lives. 

Stewart even opened up about her strained relationship with her daughter Alexis, telling Guarino that she had always put her career before her family. 

‘I told Martha at the end of the day, family is all you got,’ Guarino said. 

She says she explained to Stewart that she ended up in prison for trying to make $30,000 by selling coke to support herself and her family, while Martha – America’s first self-made female billionaire – was incarcerated for attempting to save a few thousand dollars on a stock deal, an amount that was pocket change to her.

‘I told Martha, “you risked your freedom for such a small amount of money that didn’t make any difference in your life” which was stupid. 

‘I compared it to me doing a cocaine deal for $3. It wasn’t worth it.’

Guarino claims the domestic icon would later acknowledge their tight bond during a touching conversation that led her to believe they ‘were going to be friends forever’.

‘She said Lisa I did not know what a friend was until I got here. I have a best friend in you and I thank you for it.’

The pair would spend a lot of time together, even exercising doing ‘hundreds’ of crunches and leg lifts a day.

To break the monotony, Guarino says she would count out loud in Italian and Martha would count out loud in French.

She recalled one incident when Stewart got herself into trouble when they went into an upstairs area of the unit and found the curtains drawn – a sign not to enter or disturb. 

‘I told Martha I think we should leave, but Martha insisted that this was her area and opened them,’ Guarino said. 

‘As soon as she opened, we saw several girls in all forms of being undressed and in sexual positions. These women were known as the ‘bull daggers’ the butch gay girls in prison.

‘One of the biggest of the bull daggers named ‘Swish’ came up to Martha and told her: “You’re  dead, girl”.’

The menacing threat left Martha cowering behind Guarino who felt she had to step in and diffuse the situation.  

‘Swish wanted to kill Martha, for opening the curtain interrupting them. I immediately reminded Swish that she owed me and I wanted to call in the favor.’

Swish then asked, ‘You want to use the favor on this b***h?’ before turning to Stewart and saying: ‘You owe Little Italy big time.’

To make peace Guarino offered Stewart to give them all yoga lessons, she claims. 

‘If it weren’t for me, Martha could have been seriously injured or worse that night, she was frightened to death but looking back on it, I don’t think it ever permanently registered in her mind.’

Many of the inmates didn’t like her just because she was Martha Stewart, according to Guarino. 

And while she wasn’t exactly prison smart, Stewart did have some ‘street smarts’ in her, she claims. 

‘She had me and others smuggle things out of the prison kitchen for her. She also never held any of her own contraband, extra food or other items you weren’t allowed to keep in your possession.’ 

Guarino revealed that Martha did get a write-up after getting caught trying to smuggle two sugar packages out of the kitchen and she was reprimanded for picking crabapples from the prison’s trees. 

‘Every blade of grass and tree leaf is owned by the government so when Martha made her crabapple jam it was made from contraband product,’ she explained. 

Guarino was at the facility with Stewart for most of the latter’s five-month incarceration but was transferred to Danbury, Connecticut, to enter a drug treatment program a few weeks before Stewart’s release.

‘Martha did organize a going away party for me before I was transferred to Danbury. Overall, I had a good time with her and really thought we connected as friends. I took her under my wing, I protected her,’ she says.

Since she was freed in 2006, Guarino’s life has not been as easy as Stewart’s. She has faced multiple health battles over the years, and in 2015 was diagnosed with lymphoma and leukemia for which she is not currently undergoing treatment. 

She lives on limited social security and says she is forced to make up the difference each month by ‘begging, borrowing, or stealing’.

Stewart, meanwhile recently celebrated the release of her new Netflix documentary, ‘Martha’ – which mentions her stint in prison.

During their prison stint, Guarino claims, Stewart had expressed being ‘grateful’ for her help and guidance. 

So much so that Stewart told her family during a prison visit she would give her $1million upon release – a promise, Guarino says, Stewart has not kept.

‘She told my family they no longer needed to put money on my books because she was going to take care of me,’ she says. 

But after transferring to another facility, Guarino discovered her account empty.

‘I could’ve killed Martha when I found out she didn’t keep her word. She told my family they no longer had to put money on my books because she was going to take care of me, but she gave me a donut, a big fat zero,’ she says. 

‘I then had my phone privileges suspended for three months so I couldn’t ask my family for money. It was hell and I suffered in part due to Martha not keeping her word.’

The chain-smoking, diminutive Guarino now lives in a one-bedroom, $1,900-a-month apartment outside of Boston, unable to work because of her medical condition and survives on $600 month in social security. 

Hopeful for a reunion and for her former prison pal to make good on her promise after two decades, Guarino attended a November 11 event at the Chevalier Theatre in Medford, Massachusetts, where Stewart was promoting her 100th cookbook. 

DailyMail.com was there to witness Stewart arrive and wave at fans while Guarino attempted to get her attention, calling out her name and even making eye contact. 

At one point she yelled out, ‘Martha, it’s Lisa!’, yet, Stewart, who was easily within earshot, appeared to ignore her calls and quickly averted her gaze, before slipping into the theater. 

Following her appearance, Stewart left through a side exit, bypassing the waiting crowd.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Guarino said: ‘Martha blew me off after I saved her life in prison. ‘She jumped the fence to not have to look at me or say something to me and ran off.

‘I’m pissed off, I’m offended.’

Reflecting on her experience, Guarino says she feels more pity than resentment for Stewart. 

‘I believed Martha when she told me in prison that we were friends, but I guess when she got back into her world, she went back to her old narcissistic ways.  

‘She has all the money in the world but part of me feels sorry for her. 

‘At least I have my family.’