Martha Stewart, 78, Shows Us How a Swimsuit Thirst Trap Is Done

UPDATE: July 28, 2020 Martha Stewart confirmed to Entertainment Tonight that her viral pool selfie was, indeed, a thirst trap. 

“That’s definitely a thirst trap,” she told the outlet, later explaining the origin of the photo. “[I] just thought I looked great coming out of the pool,” she said. “My camera came on backwards, you know, selfie mode, and I looked so nice. The sun was on my face. I thought, ‘Oh, that looks pretty,’ so I took the picture. It looked good.” 


ORIGINAL STORY: 

Scram, Gen Z. Beat it, millennials. Martha Stewart is half-submerged in her Hamptons Pool wearing nothing but a scrap of fabric, diamonds, and a perfect duck face. The Martha Stewart who wore sensible androgynous gardening smocks is dead. Meet 2020 Martha Stewart: glistening mermaid and Instagram THOT (that home-living expert over there). Her cooking is mouthwatering. And now so is she. Long may she reign. 

This Martha? I don't know her.

The New York Times Food For Tomorrow Conference 2016 - Day 2

This Martha? I don't know her.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

For the uninitiated, a thirst trap is an image posted online in which the subject is both obviously trying to look sexy and obviously succeeding at looking sexy. Here Stewart reinvents the form. She was born before the end of World War II, but she has the influencer soul of someone who doesn’t know the name George Bush. 

In her Tuesday evening post, a master class in looking hot online, Stewart stares down at the ideal smoldering 45-degree angle. Her lips? Frosted. Her eyelids? Shimmering. Her hair? Beachy waves. Her ears? Dripping in what look like Art Deco diamond studs. The water behind her is the glittering turquoise of an Apple screensaver from 2005. She looks as if she’s exhaling 1,000 cigarettes but, like, in the time before people knew cigarettes were bad. The overall effect can only be described as “three-water-droplets emoji.” 

The true adventure begins in the caption, which reads like a combination of a DIY house project handbook and a 1950s erotic novel. “It fit in a long narrow space between the house and the property line,” she writes of her pool, which she notes she built 30 years ago. “I made it extra deep for diving and with no protruding steps so we could really race the length without worrying about obstacles. After all these years, it is a fun place to swim!!!” 

The woman who is synonymous with domestic perfection has outdone herself. This time her triumph is not an easy breakfast quinoa or an autumnal tablescape or even a massive TV, print, and merchandizing brand. The triumph is Martha herself, proclaiming that yes, she may have a swimming pool older than the modern-day country of Croatia, but after all these years, she’s still a fun place to swim. 

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.                     

Originally Appeared on Glamour