{"id":102277,"date":"2025-07-29T14:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/102277\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T14:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:31:15","slug":"gwyneth-paltrow-book-is-full-of-celebrity-and-goop-gossip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/102277\/","title":{"rendered":"Gwyneth Paltrow Book Is Full of Celebrity and Goop Gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo: Michael Tran\/AFP\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Gwyneth Paltrow has lived several lives \u2014 Oscar-winning Miramax darling, controversy-plagued wellness mogul, ski-accident victim \u2014 with each new turn continually drawing intense public interest. Now, Amy Odell is digging deeper into the actress turned guru\u2019s varied life and career in her new biography, Gwyneth, out now. In the book\u2019s introduction, Odell writes about how she decided on Paltrow as the subject to follow up her 2022 biography on Anna Wintour, saying, \u201cWhen trying to think of another woman whose life and career had the same combination of public fascination and private complexity, I kept coming back to Gwyneth Paltrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

That complexity makes Paltrow a potentially difficult subject to nail down, given her aptitude for controlling public opinion and her penchant for offering up often contradictory takes \u2014 like when she famously said<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s what makes life interesting, finding the balance between cigarettes and tofu.\u201d Nonetheless, Odell showcases those contradictions rather than try to make sense of them, weaving a thorough portrait of her book\u2019s inherently enigmatic subject \u2014 even without Paltrow\u2019s involvement. She explains that despite Goop\u2019s publicist originally signaling interest in Paltrow participating or offering up sources, she ultimately ghosted and seemed to dissuade others from talking. Even so, Odell writes that she \u201cinterviewed more than 220 people from [Paltrow\u2019s] childhood, her inner social circle, and the entertainment world \u2014 including directors, costars, crew members \u2014 and current and former employees from Goop.\u201d The result chronicles the star\u2019s nepotism-tinged childhood, breakthrough as an actress, and pivot to dominating the wellness space.<\/p>\n

Here, all the most notable, Goopiest takeaways.<\/p>\n

Madonna serves as an odd through-line throughout Paltrow\u2019s life, first via a note she received from the pop star as a teenager. Paltrow\u2019s father, Bruce, a producer on St. Elsewhere, was so desperate to get his daughter to stop smoking that he asked one of the show\u2019s directors, Leo Penn, to get a note from his son Sean\u2019s new wife, Madonna, discouraging the habit. \u201cDear Gwyneth, Just to jot down my average day \u2026 I wake up, I don\u2019t smoke \u2026 And I go home a happy healthy me. Love, Me, Madonna. P.S.: Good girls live longer,\u201d the note read. Paltrow, naturally, brought the note to school \u2014 and framed it in her bedroom \u2014 but continued to smoke.<\/p>\n

Madonna stepped up once more to offer support early in Paltrow\u2019s stardom, after nude paparazzi photos of her and her then-boyfriend, Brad Pitt<\/a>, were printed in the tabloids. \u201cShe\u2019s experiencing the upsides and the downsides of being famous for the first time,\u201d Madonna said. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot for someone to take \u2026 So I\u2019m happy to help her.\u201d She advised Paltrow, \u201cIt\u2019s your karma, where you are right now,\u201d after she found herself in a funk after her Oscar win at 26. Whatever that means.<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s friendship eventually came to an end after Madonna showed up to an island where Paltrow and Chris Martin were vacationing. \u201cMadonna seemed to know that Gwyneth would be there, which Gwyneth seemed to find strange, a friend remembered. Madonna then insisted Gwyneth and Martin join her for a big group dinner at a long table where Madonna went off on her daughter, Lourdes. Gwyneth and Martin were disgusted by the behavior. \u2018I can\u2019t be around this woman anymore,\u2019 Martin told Gwyneth. \u2018She\u2019s awful.\u2019 Gwyneth agreed that Madonna was toxic and ended the friendship,\u201d Odell writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, Spence\u2019s rather humorless librarian approached [Gwyneth\u2019s adviser James] Dawson outraged that a student had drawn, on the partition of a study cubicle, an erect penis. She sent all four girls \u2014 Gwyneth among them \u2014 who had been in the library at the time to Dawson,\u201d Odell writes. \u201c\u2018Gwyneth, you drew the erect penis in the library,\u2019 he said. \u2018I\u2019m not really sure what you\u2019re talking about,\u2019 she said. He presented a picture the library had given him of the masterpiece. \u2018Oh, that penis,\u2019 Gwyneth said. \u2018I wasn\u2019t sure what we were talking about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ke.Mazur\/WireImage\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

According to the book, she candidly shared details of her sex life with Ben Affleck to her makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin. \u201cShe spoke openly about how much she enjoyed their sex life \u2014 it was the ribald side of her that her friends knew well but that the public didn\u2019t see. She told Kevyn Aucoin in his London hotel room one day after lunch that she loved when Affleck \u2018tea-bagged\u2019 her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the publicists on [Calvin Klein]\u2019s small team who helped Gwyneth was Carolyn Bessette (who would go on to become Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy),\u201d Odell writes about Paltrow visiting Calvin Klein for her Sliding Doors wardrobe. \u201cAccording to one person familiar with her thinking, Gwyneth irked her. When there were pictures of Gwyneth in the papers, Bessette, who viewed her as \u2018little miss perfect,\u2019 would make cutting remarks about her.\u201d It\u2019s unlikely any of those cutting remarks will make it into the limited series about Bessette and Kennedy that Paltrow\u2019s husband, Brad Falchuk, is now producing.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t discuss eccentric celebrity baby names without Apple popping up, but turns out Paltrow wasn\u2019t the first to come up with the name. \u201cAfter Shallow Hal wrapped in June 2001, Gwyneth spent time in Martha\u2019s Vineyard with Peter Farrelly and his family, including a daughter named Apple. Gwyneth never mentioned this as inspiration when she chose the same name for her daughter nearly three years later, and Farrelly didn\u2019t seem to take offense. His wife, Melinda Kocsis, just said, \u2018Maybe it\u2019ll make it easier for my Apple when she gets older.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When an awkward Paltrow started attending Spence in seventh grade, Odell writes that \u201cboys from other schools started calling her \u2018E.T.,\u2019 because they said her eyes were far apart.\u201d It\u2019s a put-down that should have been easily deflated by the fact that Steven Spielberg is her godfather. Naturally, he gave Paltrow her first movie role, playing Young Wendy in Hook, and would go on to not only attend but film her wedding to Falchuk.<\/p>\n

He turned to one of the film\u2019s grips, saying the good news was he\u2019d get to make out with Gwyneth Paltrow, and the bad news was he\u2019d have to shave the sides of his head into a mohawk. According to Odell, \u201cThe young man did not pause: \u2018I\u2019ll do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ron Galella Collection\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

After Paltrow and Pitt broke up, she stayed with her friend Winona Ryder, eventually setting her up with Matt Damon. But their friendship soon took a turn. \u201cShe told friends that after Ryder and Damon had gotten in a fight, Ryder left and returned to say that she had been robbed around Gramercy Park; she went out again and said she had been robbed again. Damon consoled her, but Gwyneth and Affleck believed Ryder had fabricated the robberies as a ploy for attention (there\u2019s no proof of this),\u201d Odell writes. \u201cHer friendship with Ryder would only deteriorate further, and Gwyneth gave her the nickname, one friend said, \u2018Vagina Ryder.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Legend has long had it that Ryder was also up for Shakespeare in Love and that Paltrow had stolen the script off Ryder\u2019s coffee table. \u201cGwyneth told friends that Ryder had started the rumor, and insisted she\u2019d received the script through her agent,\u201d Odell writes, and her sources from Miramax confirm that Ryder was interested in the role but was never seriously considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Gwyneth\u2019s circumstances improved, so did her dogs\u2019,\u201d Odell writes about her two Labrador retrievers, Anca and Holden, who joined Paltrow in Paris for a film shoot. \u201cAfter their stay in Paris, Anca started responding only to French. \u2018Say \u2018come\u2019 or \u2018sit\u2019 in English and she ignores you,\u2019 Gwyneth said. \u2018It\u2019s so pretentious.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like Tyra Banks once did on her talk show, Paltrow took it upon herself to do a social experiment and walked through life in her Shallow Hal costume. According to Odell, \u201cIt came in six pieces \u2014 one that zipped over her torso, one that slipped over her legs like shorts, two calf pieces, and two gloves \u2014 plus a face that was essentially glued to hers, and was meant to make her look like she weighed 350 pounds. She planned to walk around downtown Charlotte, without an entourage or full camera crew, to experience what her high school yearbook had called her \u2018worst fear\u2019 \u2014 obesity.\u201d<\/p>\n

After dipping her toe into music with her role as Holly Holliday on Glee and later in the film Country Strong, Paltrow flirted with the idea of making an album. \u201cBeyonc\u00e9 and Jay-Z gave her more music advice than [Chris] Martin when she was considering doing her own album: \u2018Beyonc\u00e9 and Jay \u2014 they think that I should just go do it by myself. That I should go \u2026 in a studio and see what happens. And if it\u2019s good, do it. And if it\u2019s not, don\u2019t. So that\u2019s probably what I\u2019ll do.\u2019 An album never materialized, nor did a singing career,\u201d Odell writes. Thankfully, her Glee cover of \u201cForget You\u201d is still available on streaming.<\/p>\n

New Goop hires would find themselves chastised by colleagues for mispronouncing their famous boss\u2019s name. Odell writes, \u201cGwyneth made clear to new staff that her name was pronounced \u2018Gwyn\u2019 like \u2018pin\u2019 instead of \u2018Gwen\u2019 like \u2018pen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Paltrow\u2019s experience with Harvey Weinstein has already been well documented, most notably his sexual harassment of her in a hotel suite, which her then-boyfriend, Pitt, later confronted him about: \u201cPitt knew how terrified Gwyneth had been after her encounter with Weinstein at the Peninsula. He also knew she had signed on to do two movies for him \u2026 He told Weinstein something to the effect of \u2018If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I\u2019ll kill you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, Paltrow took a call from Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter at the New York Times, who was working on a story about Weinstein\u2019s abuse. A year prior, Paltrow refused to talk to New York Magazine about a similar story after Weinstein dissuaded her, telling her, \u201cI just really want to protect the people who did say yes.\u201d According to Kantor and Megan Twohey\u2019s book, She Said, Paltrow was reluctant to speak on the record, fearing that a sensational story would just add to the controversies plaguing Goop at the time, but \u201cshe decided to tap her Hollywood network to see if she could find other women who would come forward, so that her account could be part of a larger story.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Paltrow and Pitt stayed at London\u2019s Berkeley Hotel during the filming of Emma, there was one condition to the accommodations: The pair had to vacate their swanky suite for one night, but they weren\u2019t told why. \u201cThat night, [producer Steven] Haft escorted them to a spot near the side entrance of the hotel. \u2018Just watch,\u2019 he said. Within minutes, three Rolls-Royces pulled up, and out of one stepped Queen Elizabeth and the queen mother, who made their way inside to the balcony suite, where, Haft had been told, they planned to dine. After Their Royal Highnesses cleared out, the production crew moved Gwyneth and Pitt back in,\u201d Odell writes.<\/p>\n

As Goop\u2019s reach grew, so did the negative attention and parodies. \u201cGoop\u2019s staff tuned in sometimes to a podcast called Poog, where comedians Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak discussed overwrought wellness trends,\u201d Odell reveals.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Rachel Murray\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

When Goop teamed up with Cond\u00e9 Nast in 2017 to launch a print magazine, the effort proved to be a \u201cdisaster,\u201d particularly owing to the two entities\u2019 vastly different fact-checking standards. \u201cWintour told her team that Goop in print needed to be fact-checked at the same standard as all other Cond\u00e9 Nast titles,\u201d Odell writes. \u201cCond\u00e9 staff would try to chase down the writers of the old Goop stories and ask for their sources and research materials, often about some scientifically dubious process like lymphatic drainage massage or pet psychics. This was a typical magazine fact-checking process, but it seemed new to Goop. Cond\u00e9\u2019s editors felt like they were making good-faith efforts to substantiate the stories only to find them falling apart under scrutiny.\u201d On top of that, there was confusion over who was in charge of the magazine, Paltrow or Wintour, and Cond\u00e9 struggled to sell ads given that Goop wanted to use the magazine to promote its own products. The partnership fell apart after the second issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanderson said in a 2025 interview for this book that \u2018there was no reaching out, no contact, no efforts by attorneys to resolve\u2019 the case out of court. \u2018I think it was just her time to stand up to something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be a biography of Gwyneth Paltrow without covering her then-friend Derek Blasberg reportedly shitting the bed at her home. \u201cWhile staying at her Montecito home, Blasberg suffered what was alleged to have been Ozempic-induced (a detail that was later called into question by the Daily Mail) diarrhea in the bed of the guesthouse, then fled without telling her, leaving her housekeeper to clean it up. Gwyneth was appalled,\u201d Odell writes, saying that Paltrow was so offended that he hadn\u2019t personally apologized that she made sure the story (much like Blasberg on that fateful night) leaked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Michael Tran\/AFP\/Getty Images Gwyneth Paltrow has lived several lives \u2014 Oscar-winning Miramax darling, controversy-plagued wellness mogul, ski-accident…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":102278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24795,1022,171,54425,50,66490,67,132,68,1147],"class_list":{"0":"post-102277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-biography","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-gwyneth-paltrow","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-revelations","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-vulture-homepage-lede"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114937009596199228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}