Martha Stewart had just two 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."