Who Is Martha Stewart's Billionaire Ex, Charles Simonyi? Inside Their 15 Year Romance

One of Martha Stewart's most high-profile relationships was with tech billionaire Charles Simonyi. Although the two never married, they formed such a close relationship during their time together that Stewart likened their eventual breakup to a divorce. But who exactly is the man Martha Stewart spent 15 years with?

Stewart and Simonyi were both born in the 1940s. However, Simonyi hails from Budapest — more than 4,000 miles away from Stewart's birthplace of Jersey City. After a spell in Denmark as a teen, he moved to the U.S. for school. In 1981, Simonyi — now with a PhD from Stanford under his belt — landed a gig at a little company called Microsoft, which had only existed for about six years at that point. Just about anyone who has ever used a Microsoft computer for work or school has experienced Simonyi's legacy, whether they realize it or not — as he led the charge in building the earliest versions of Microsoft Office. Simonyi ultimately left the company in 2002, opting to strike out on his own.

But Simonyi's journey with Martha Stewart began in 1993 — shortly after Martha divorced publisher Andrew Stewart after nearly 30 years of marriage and subsequently ended a brief fling with actor Anthony Hopkins. Though Simonyi insisted he and Stewart were just friends in a 1999 interview with New York Magazine, rumors that they were more than that had swirled since at least 1997. And their connection reportedly persisted well into the 2000s.

Things got serious (and not in the way you're thinking) in 2004, when Stewart caught multiple charges stemming from an insider trading scandal. Simonyi stood by Stewart during the trial, and defended her when she was found guilty on multiple criminal counts. "I think it's just a sad day, and we can only hope that process will play out in a fairer and more charitable way," Simonyi told the Seattle Times at the time.

However, Stewart says her contact with Simonyi was minimal during her actual five-month stint in federal prison. In her recent Netflix doc "Martha," she revealed that Simonyi only came to visit her once, saying he wasn't a fan of "hanging out with somebody in jail." Still, the New York Daily News reported that Simonyi sent a private jet to pick Stewart up after she was released from prison in 2005. Per The New York Times, Stewart later accompanied Simonyi to Kazakhstan to see him off on his first trip to the International Space Station in 2007.

Stewart and Simonyi broke things off for good in 2008, and Stewart found the breakup difficult. She also felt hurt when Simonyi got engaged to another woman just six months later. "I thought that was the most horrible thing a person could do," Stewart said in the documentary. "How can a man who spent 15 years with me do that?"