Martha Stewart is facing backlash after dressing as a homeless person for Halloween — in a social media post that was also, awkwardly, an advertisement for her QVC candle line.

The 85-year-old lifestyle mogul posted a Halloween-themed Instagram carousel on Friday promoting her candle collection, captioned "My QVC candles are perfect for Halloween!!!" The third slide in the carousel, however, showed Stewart dressed as a homeless person — a costume choice that quickly overshadowed the sales pitch, according to Variety.

Commenters called the costume "dystopian" and accused Stewart of trivializing poverty. "Rich people using poverty as a costume will never not disgust me," one widely shared comment read. Stewart deleted the post not long after it went up, but screenshots continued circulating.

I AM DISTRESSED THAT MY COSTUME OFFENDED PEOPLE, WHICH WAS NEVER MY INTENTION.

In a statement to Page Six, reported by NBC News and Mediaite, Stewart said the costume was meant to "bring more awareness" to homelessness, which she described as one of America's greatest ongoing challenges. She pointed to her past support for charities working on the issue as evidence her intentions weren't malicious.

The apology didn't fully land. Outlets covering the statement noted that many of the same critics who objected to the costume in the first place weren't satisfied by Stewart's explanation, arguing that an awareness message sits awkwardly alongside a costume used to sell candles.

The flap is an unusual one for Stewart, who has built a decades-long reputation — reinforced annually — as something of Halloween's reigning celebrity, known for elaborate, often campy costumes that typically draw admiration rather than criticism. This year's choice broke that pattern, turning what was meant to be a lighthearted seasonal post into the kind of controversy that tends to follow her far longer than a single holiday news cycle.