Martha Hopes 'Matter' Is Resolved Soon

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/25/2002 at 11:00 AM EDT

Anyway you slice it, Martha Stewart was talking about lettuce -- both the kind that grows in the ground and the other kind, also known as money. The exasperated-looking domestic diva, appearing on CBS's "Early Show" Tuesday morning, chopped cabbage while answering questions about her sale of nearly 4,000 ImClone shares last December, a day before the company's stock nose-dived after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected one of its highly touted cancer drugs. "I'm just not at liberty at this time to make any comments whatsoever," Stewart, 60, told "Early Show" host Jane Clayson on-camera. "I certainly hope that the matter is resolved in the very near future." Stewart also added, notes Reuters, that she hoped her entanglement in the scandal would soon be resolved, vowing that she would "be exonerated of any ridiculousness." (Shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have taken a beating of some 34 percent since reports of her ImClone trading surfaced, though on Tuesday, reports Reuters, the stock rose 2 percent to $12.80 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange) "I have been the subject of very favorable reporting and very unfavorable reporting over the years," said Stewart. "I choose to go ahead with my work, to concentrate on the good work my company does." As for the present, "I want to focus on my salad," she emphasized.