What Happened To Martha Stewart's Ex Charles Simonyi?

In 1990, Martha Stewart was on the rise to become one of the most successful businesswomen in America. Her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, was set to go into circulation and she was looking to expand into other media markets. However, that same year, her marriage to Andrew Stewart crumbled after a 30-year run, and Andrew moved on from Martha with her assistant. Dusting herself off, Martha began a years-long friendship with billionaire software executive Charles Simonyi a few years later in 1993.

In the mid-to-late 90s, Martha and Simonyi could be seen attending almost any major event together — even if they never made their relationship status official. Often referring to each other only as friends, Martha and Charles waited until the 2000s before being open about the nature of their dating life. Simonyi stood by Martha during her brief stint behind bars in 2005, and the two continued to date after her release. It wasn't until 2008 that the couple broke up when Simonyi casually mentioned to Martha that he was getting married to another woman. Even though Martha and Simonyi were never married, Martha refers to this breakup as her "second divorce" in her Netflix documentary, "Martha" — leaving many viewers and fans to wonder, who is Simonyi and where is he now?

Charles Simonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary, and relocated to Denmark as a teenager to pursue work as a computer programmer. Eventually making his way to the United States, Simonyi studied at UC Berkeley before finishing his doctorate degree in computer science at Stanford. This allowed him to get his foot in the door early at Microsoft, where he was responsible for developing major programs like Word and Excel. This paved the way for him to earn his first billion back in 2015.

During Simonyi's 15-year relationship with Martha Stewart, he kept it quiet that he had any other irons in the fire. He apparently caught the home decor maven by surprise in 2008 by telling her randomly one day, "You know Martha, I'm going to get married, I'm gonna get married to Lisa" (via Woman & Home). Stewart recalls this sad detail in her documentary "Martha" and admits to being utterly blindsided by the news — especially when Simonyi divulged that as part of his marriage agreement, he was no longer to have any contact with her.

Simonyi went on to marry the much-younger daughter of a Swedish billionaire, Lisa Persdotter, in November 2008 — only a few months after ending it with Stewart. Simonyi and Persdotter are still married and have two daughters, Lillian and Livia. Simonyi is 32 years Persdotter's senior. Stewart, for her part, is done prioritizing men.