This celebrity stylist, once a ‘hometown hero,’ is now a GOP candidate the Gloucester County Democrats attack regularly

Thirteen years ago, Martino Cartier sat next to a lion for a self-made music video for his charity to a cover of Katy Perry’s pop anthem “Roar.”

He dances with cancer survivors around a fire, and at the end of the video, giant letters spelling out CANCER engulf in flames. Today, Cartier’s hair salon logo – the face of a golden lion wearing a crown – is plastered all over his business’ windows.

“Lions are fierce, and they don’t back down,” said Cartier, 51, a celebrity stylist running for Gloucester County commissioner, as he walked through his property.

Cartier lives in the Sewell section of Washington Township down a long driveway lined with American flags blocked off by a golden gate adorned with two lions, right next to the salon. Outside, there’s a fountain with, yes, more lions.

His property is home to the nonprofit he runs: Wigs and Wishes, which gives wigs to women with cancer and grants “wishes” to children with cancer, like seeing their favorite celebrities or enjoying a petting zoo — there’s also one of those on his property.

Cartier is one of three Republicans running to oust the three incumbent Democratic County Commissioners up for reelection: Jim Jefferson, Joann Gattinelli, and Matthew Weng. But his eccentricity, online footprint, and controversial past has attracted an outsized amount of attention, particularly from the Gloucester County Democratic Committee, which posts about him regularly.

They’ve touched on a slew of issues, from Cartier’s past legal troubles, his President Donald Trump-branded apparel, and remarks on his Christian podcast that some have found offensive — to name a few.

“All facts,” said Democratic county committee chair Steve Sweeney, a former state Senate president who now serves as county administrator.

Cartier, who said his first priority would be trying to fire Sweeney, has fiercely pushed back against the committee’s attacks on him.

Just a few years ago, Washington Township Democrats celebrated Cartier as a “hometown hero” on a parade float. In 2021, Democratic U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross awarded him a Making a Difference Award at the county’s NAACP gala. Over several years, Gattinelli, one of the Democrats running for reelection, supported Cartier’s charity work, and he supported her mayoral bids. Cartier said they have not spoken since he launched his campaign.

“When you’ve walked side by side me and have seen the thousands of lives that I’ve changed, you should all be ashamed of yourselves,” Cartier said, ranting in a phone interview Sunday.

It’s a similar tone he’s taken on Facebook Live, and at a nonpartisan candidate forum hosted by the Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce.

“They can smear my name, they can smear my good work, but I won’t tolerate it, and I will defend it,” he snapped at the forum, and proudly held up his 2022 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which honors immigrants and descendants of immigrants. He told an attendee that he doesn’t know how to speak without passion.

Cartier was born Baby Boy Ayad and then named Martin Clinton Maguire Jr. when his Irish American parents adopted him in Jersey City. Cartier has publicly shared a story about how his biological mother was sent to the United States from Egypt for an abortion but she gave him up for adoption instead.

As Cartier grew up, he became tired of being told he doesn’t look like a Maguire. He hated the name. So when he was expecting his first son in 1999, he rushed to get his name legally changed to Martino Ayad Cartier so his child wouldn’t have the same experience, he said. He came up with the name with the help of a hairstyling client. His name has now been passed on to his adult son Martino Brigade Cartier, toddler son Israel Martino Cartier, and newborn Judah Martino Cartier.

“I hope it keeps getting passed on,” he said.

Back in 2008, Cartier’s salon was featured as a chaotic mess on Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, a reality TV show in which host Tabatha Coffey helps struggling salons. Coffey was shocked by dog poop on the floor of Cartier’s office, dirty work stations, and his touchy approach with clients and staff, calling them names like “hun, babe, sweetie,” and even licking them.

“Their husbands don’t call them that so they like coming here and feeling good,” Cartier said in the 2008 episode.

He opened up to Coffey about living beyond his means and owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to fund his lavish lifestyle.

“I’m $300,000 in debt,” he told her in the episode. “I had to borrow money from my mom, take out a second mortgage on my house just to keep the salon afloat.”

When she returned for another episode two years later, she was thrilled to hear Cartier share that he improved his personal finances as well as the salon’s.

“I didn’t see him licking, lap-dancing, or doing anything inappropriate with clients,” Coffey also noted in the reunion episode.

Cartier, who said he’s now friends with Coffey, credited much of his success to his appearance on the show – and Coffey has made appearances with Wigs and Wishes. He’s since traveled around the world as the face of various hair products, had his own brand on Home Shopping Network (HSN), and has been paid thousands for public speaking gigs.

“It was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me and people all over the globe know that,” he said.

On a rainy October day, Cartier dug through cabinets in his salon office for a wig that would match the natural hair color of a woman with cancer.

To his side was Gianna Cartier, 36, his then-pregnant wife who helps run the charity as its “chief compassion officer” and manages the salon. Baby Judah was born days later.

The Democratic committee has pointed out that Cartier’s nonprofit, registered as Friends Are by your Side, is listed as non-compliant in the state’s charity database. Cartier said it’s because his accountant requested an extension for the charity’s tax filings and shared a photo of the returns dated Oct. 26. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to an inquiry about the nonprofit Tuesday.

The committee calls Cartier an “admitted criminal fraudster,” referencing his 2003 guilty plea over falsely reporting his car as stolen, which has since been wiped from his record because of a pretrial intervention program.

Another time Cartier got in trouble in the early 2000s: Buying a pet monkey for his oldest son Brigade – a toddler at the time – which he also brought to his salon.

Cartier purchased a Moochie, a capuchin monkey, from a licensed Pennsylvania breeder for $5,000 and sold it to a friend when he realized he wouldn’t be able to keep it in New Jersey, the Courier Post reported in 2002. He was charged with illegally owning and selling the monkey and ended up pleading guilty and paying $500 for possession, according to the newspaper.

In 2006, Cartier lost a Republican primary for Washington Township Council, losing with less than a quarter of the vote.

Over the years Cartier has been in various legal battles.

He was sued by the luxury company Cartier over his use of the name. A customer filed a class-action lawsuit in 2022 over credit card information showing up on receipts at his salon. A model accused him of negligence from cutting her neck during a 2016 beauty show, which he described as a scratch and called a “money grab.”

“When you’re in business, when you’re in the limelight, and when you’re doing trade shows, you are more subject to things like this happening than the everyday Joe or Jenny,” Cartier said Tuesday.

Cartier entered a private settlement with HSN after it fired him in 2023 for “unwanted physical contact with multiple team members and exhibited signs of being intoxicated.” In response, Cartier filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit.

In 2024, he sued Washington Township over zoning enforcement against statues on his property and his desire to build a Christmas tree farm next to his property.

“He’s been sued a lot by a whole lot of people … everyone can’t all be wrong,” Sweeney said in an interview.

Democrats have also accused Cartier of illegally intermingling his nonprofit with his political campaign.

Earlier this month, Cartier paraded his Wigs and Wishes motor home in the Monroe Township Halloween parade with his Republican running mates Katherine Falcone and Barbara McCormick, the vehicle decked out with campaign signs. Cartier uses the motor home for the charity and it’s wrapped with Wigs and Wishes branding. But he contended that he can do what he wants with it, saying it was gifted to him from a friend and it’s registered and insured in his own name.

“These scared incumbents … are so evil that they think everybody else is evil,” Cartier said on the phone Sunday.

Among the photos printed on the RV’s wrap is a photo of Cartier with Paula Abdul, the charity’s “celebrity sponsor and adviser,” who Cartier described as his “ride or die.” She has not gotten involved with the campaign and declined to comment through Cartier, though she’s previously praised him as “very special.”

But as much as he’s beloved by allies like Abdul, he’s also made comments that have offended others, particularly in clips on his podcast that local Democrats have circulated online showing him laughing at concepts behind Sikhism – New Jersey has one of the largest Sikh populations in the country – and jokingly calling TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew “Ching Chong.”

He also faced backlash for a comment he made about slavery. “With American slaves, that was just greed of African American people that sold their own people,” Cartier said. In an interview, he said he “misspoke” by saying American after African.

At a Democratic get-out-the-vote rally Saturday, Jefferson, one of Cartier’s opponents, admonished him for “trying to lecture us why slavery happened and blaming it on Black people.”

Cartier said the podcast hosts were discussing the history of slavery and he was reading from a script he did not write. Regarding his podcast comments in general, he said he has reached out and apologized to people who have been genuinely offended by his language but said others are “trolling.”

“It’s only offensive because I’m running for Republican commissioner, and you weren’t offended before, or you would have brought it up,” he said.

Simone Herbin-Canty, an unaffiliated voter in West Deptford and cancer survivor who wears a wig from Wigs and Wishes, said in an interview at Cartier’s salon that she laughs at the criticism of Cartier.

“I understand that people got a job to do, and they gotta twist things around or take little sound bites or little snippets of videos and try to make it work toward their benefit. But … show the whole video so that you can understand exactly where this man is coming from,” she said.

Gianna Cartier said it’s frustrating to “see something about your husband every day on the internet” but said that she just has to “let it go and just like, let God do what God does.”

Cartier’s property has three giant wooden crosses towering near the road. He describes himself as an evangelical Christian, which is the root of his support for Israel. That connection deepened after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Among Cartier’s tattoos are his eldest son’s name Brigade, “Made in Egypt,” and “Am Israel Chai” in Hebrew letters, which means “the people of Israel live.” He has a bench with the Israeli flag printed on it right next to his salon parking lot, and a dreidel-shaped fire pit further back on the property.

In 2020 he raised money for United Hatzalah, an emergency response organization in Israel. In April 2025, he went on a trip to volunteer with the Jewish organization Chabad and dressed in traditional Jewish garb. He wrapped his lion-branded cape around the front of countless Israeli soldiers and gave them free haircuts.

After returning from that trip, Cartier put on an American flag Trump hat and golden Trump boots and posted a video on Facebook on June 22, 2025:

“I’ve never been more proud to be an American and I am so proud of President Trump! God Bless America, God Bless Israel, let’s go!”

Cartier said he was expressing his excitement for hostages coming home. That day, The Associated Press reported that the remains of three additional hostages had been recovered by Israel, the week after the U.S. launched a surprise attack on Iran.

“President Trump may say a lot of stupid things and he may do a lot of stupid things as well, and there’s a lot of things I don’t agree with, but I am so thankful and grateful that those hostages came home,” Cartier said in a text.

Despite his apparel choices, Cartier said he is more of a “Reagan Republican” than the “MAGA extremist” Democrats are presenting him as, because he’s “for the people.”

FEC records show Cartier contributed more than $3,500 to support President Donald Trump’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns spread across smaller donations, which Cartier said he didn’t remember making but noted they were likely recurring.

He said that one photo Democrats have shared of him wearing a pink Trump hat signed by the president was a breast cancer awareness-themed gift from U.S. Rep. Scott Perry after he helped a 16-year-old cancer survivor. Cartier said if he got a hat signed by former President Joe Biden in the same situation he would’ve worn that proudly as well.

And the golden Trump boots in his video? Well he said he also wore those for a getup at a fundraiser at Mara-Lago for veterans suicide prevention.

“When I was on Home Shopping Network, or if I would do a trade show somewhere — you ask my wife — I would dress like Liza Minnelli, Liberace, and Elvis Presley had a baby. That would be my outfit, even if I was flying just to go sleep at the hotel, because that’s my persona,” he said. “And that’s how I met some of the most amazing people in my life.”