Martha Stewart had only 2 months to get ready for her already iconic Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover.

She upped her Pilates to three times a week, watched what she ate and stopped drinking alcohol. “I had my regular facials but maybe more frequently and I also got a spray tan,” Stewart, who is up for three Daytime Emmys this year, tells me during a phone interview on Tuesday. “And I’m not a hairy person, but I got a complete body wax.”

At 81, Stewart made history as the oldest SI swimsuit model.

A model in her 20s, Stewart worked with legends like Richard Avedon. “When I was a model and posing all the time in bathing suits and sporty sexy things, that’s the time I should have been on the cover,” she says before adding with a laugh, “But I wasn’t $75-an-hour model then. I was only a $50- and $60-an-hour model.”

It certainly has aroused an interest in many, many different places. I just got an email from Gayle King. She wrote, “Congratulations, this is really great. You look stunning, and blah, blah, blah.” I wrote back to her, “Next year is your year.” She wrote back, “I would have never even considered that it would happen, but now?” That’s what’s happening. People are now reimagining their future. And that’s what it’s all about. You can call upon the past but reimagining the future for yourself, for your family, for anybody is a very good thing right now, because of the chaos this word is in.

In the beginning, I said I would do it but I wasn’t going to wear a fuddy-duddy bathing suit with bows and drapery and all that stuff. I was not going to wear anything like that because I don’t wear stuff like that. I had to go down to the Dominican Republic. I got in very late and we had a very spare dinner and then the next morning I had to try on a room full of clothes that they had brought down. We started to shoot at eight o’clock in the morning and shot until six o’clock at night. I had nine different outfits.

Aasked before to be in the swimsuit issue?

Never. When they called, I asked my daughter, Alexis, if I should do it and she said, “Cool.” She didn’t say, “Are you crazy?” I thought that was the best response.

Playboy had come to you in the past?

No. I would never have done Playboy because I found that a very improper magazine because I was brought up a prude. We were very conservative. When we changed our clothes, we closed the bedroom door. We were not overt – except my middle sister was overt.

 

Were you comfortable being shot in just a bathing suit then?

I gritted my teeth and said, “We’re doing a bathing suit shoot.” They pushed me and primped me and all that stuff.

Have you been reading the comments on your Instagram post with the photos?

They’re very good. There are only a few naysayers saying, “The pictures are over-retouched.” But they’re not. They are incredibly accurate pictures. I was really pleased that there was not much airbrushing.

What do you think when you read comments that say you must have had a lot of work done to look so good?

Well, it’s not true. I’ve had absolutely no plastic surgery whatsoever. I have very healthy, good hair. I drink green juice every day. I take my vitamins. I eat very healthfully. I have very good skin doctors. I’m very careful in the sun. I wear hats and I wear sunblock every single day.

Every now and then there are certain fillers that I can do for a little line here or there, but I hate Botox. It’s a weird thing for me. I really and truly don’t do a lot.

Will we be seeing a Martha Stewart swimsuit calendar?

Well, I am sending one to a friend who asked for it. So I am making one for fun.

Will you be using these photos for your dating profile on Tinder or Hinge?

The algorithm doesn’t fit me very well. Or I don’t fit it. Put it that way — I don’t fit it very well. I tried. It’s ridiculous.