Gwyneth Paltrow is the ‘digital cover girl’ for the October issue of Glamour UK. I was about halfway through the cover story before I came to the section which acted as the sort of mission-statement for the profile, wherein the Glamour journalist claims that she’s not one of those “overzealous journalists” looking to criticize Gwyneth for being an out-of-touch elitist hellbent on shilling snake-oil masked as “wellness.” The Glamour UK journo declares Gwyneth to be “one of the warmest – and dare I say, most grounded – people you could ever meet.” Yeah, I don’t believe it. You can read the piece here. Some highlights:
Her second marriage: “It’s fantastic. I feel so lucky and I am so grateful. It’s different to be in your mid-forties; do it again and bring all your experience, your pain, your happiness, suffering – everything. It’s actually very heartening, I feel very optimistic!”
She feels she is ‘tied’ to London: “I just can’t believe it. I sent out a little newsletter from my kitchen in Belsize Park in 2008 and now this whole business has been created. It’s so nice to come home to London and to open a shop where this all started. I love London so much, my children were born here, they are half British – so I feel tied to this city and this country.”
Detoxing changed her life: “I was a person who loved sugar, fried food and alcohol – I still am, quite frankly. But when I did my first 21-day cleanse called, The Clean Program and cut out caffeine, gluten, diary… I felt completely re-born. I was like, ‘this wellness thing is real! I feel incredible!’ Of course, I went back to martinis, but I try to do one once a year!”
Gwyneth the Girl-Boss: “I think I am very much a girl boss, meaning that I try to lead from my feminine. For me, what that means is leading from a place of collaboration and consideration to very much keep that flow of energy going through everything. All start-ups are inherently feminine because it’s creative, it’s collaborative, it’s feelings – and as you grow, they get more masculine and more orientated to masculine processes and PNLs and patriarchy. That is also necessary, but I think it’s important to find the right balance. I love being a woman leader and I love employing mostly women – it’s amazing to see women win.”
On the criticism Goop has faced: “It’s an important lesson. Women get a lot of push-back and a lot of criticism in a way men don’t – with women leaders you see it all the time. You see it to an incredible degree right now, especially in the United States. You cannot be defeated. You have to keep your eye on the prize and keep going, especially in a company like this, where I really feel that we are moving culture forward. A lot of the criticism we get, six months later or a year later everyone is doing it. By pattern, by recognition, I can see that everyone is up in arms that we are talking about acupuncture, but however many months later it’s adapted into culture.”
Wellness is the future: “There was an idea for a while that wellness was for the rich and that is absolute bulls*t. I think it’s important, the idea that we all have autonomy over our health and wellbeing. Wellness is really a state of mind and an integration between mind, body and heart. Even walking to work, cutting out sugar or limiting alcohol are small things you can do. Breathing and mediation, too. It’s been incredible to see it go from this rarefied, bizarre concept of wellness to everybody in the world seems to understand you can take a small step towards something and feel much better.”
I’ve listened to some people argue that even Gwyneth’s bad-science Goop is good for the larger conversation about giving women options, and giving the medical community a heads-up that they can’t ignore women’s health issues. I hear those arguments, and I still think that Gwyneth is a snake-oil saleswoman who latched onto a pseudoscience platform to personally profit from rich, bored white women. And the idea that Gwyneth actually has the audacity to compare JUSTIFIED CRITICISM of the bad-science she shills to the current era of toxic misogyny in the political world… well, it’s shameful. I’m all for female leadership, in Hollywood, in the boardroom and in the White House and halls of Congress. But we’re not going to get there by selling jade eggs and healing stickers to idiots.
Cover courtesy of Glamour UK, additional photo courtesy of Avalon Red.
She is a dangerous jackass.
She’s so full of s**t. She needs to take some public-health classes and learn about the social determinants of health.
The way she looks isn’t inspiring me to buy her expensive snake oil.
Yeah, she has never been inspiring or #goals to me. She checks the usual boxes (white, blonde, thin), and while she looks “fine” for her age, there are women the same age and older who look GREAT, and they don’t (literally) graze, shove stuff up stuff, etc.
And is she trying to insinuate that centuries old Eastern healing methods (acupuncture, meditation, stricter diet) is what she’s getting grief for and not the new dumb stuff like hot rocks in your hot pocket…?
This is what kills me. She looks in the mirror and sees someone people should want to emulate and I don’t get why. I would kill for that kind of confidence, but…she is not a great person to sell skin and hair products. I definitely wouldn’t spend hundreds of dollars on products to make my skin or hair look like hers. I wouldn’t spend a dime on that. Her body is banging though, I’ll give her that.
Is wellness the same thing as beauty?
Why do you have to reduce women down to their looks? Maybe wellness is on the inside?
Being in the healthcare industry I take issue with people like her spreading misleading information. I also step back when someone is so dogged in their belief in what they read on the internet. I remember being in a hair salon and the vendor who was delivering products told my hairdresser that he was going to get some turpentine to get rid of the parasites in his body. I didn’t bother countering because he really believed in this. It’s like some of the young girls I would have to educate about why douching was not beneficial and why they keep getting yeast infections.
I spent part of the weekend reading Dr Jen Gunter’s responses to the absolute shite Gwyneth peddles, and it was equal parts glorious and horrifying. The fact that Gwyneth cannot take on board valid, scientifically proven, evidenced refutations of her claims, particularly when those claims may cause harm, and that furthermore, she tries to hide behind her gender to shield herself from criticism, is entitlement and privilege to the nth degree!
Also, her claim that “wellness isn’t just for the rich” when she runs a website selling $600 jade eggs to balance your chakras or whatever would be hilarious if it didnt also so infuriatingly exemplify that same entitlement.
And we’re not going to get there if women in leadership roles hide behind feminism/misogyny when there’s legitimate criticism of our practices…
Yes! That was the most infuriating part of this infuriating interview.
As an acupuncturist and a member of the “wellness movement” I agree that she is dangerous and wellness is BS. Should western medicine be far more focused to treating people BEFORE they get sick? Yes. And that’s what Chinese medicine does. But we practice science. It’s just a different paradigm of science that isn’t fully accepted in the US. We don’t put crystals in our water and dose ourselves with essential oils (which yes, can have healing properties if used correctly, but shouldn’t be taken internally). I just want to yell at people, don’t listen to goop, go to an Asian Medicine doctor! Sigh.
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I seriously can’t believe they put that quote on the cover considering how much most of that crap costs.
I know, I lol’d.
I don’t hate her like many do but reading this really put me off. She really should stay in her lane selling snake oil to rich ladies as a “lifestyle” brand. She does not belong in the health and wellness space at all.
Yeah.
A yoga and wellness studio near me offers a free meditation room to the public. I’ve used it during a rough time.
In what ways does Gwyneth really advance a conversation where wellness is becoming accessible? Cutting out sugar isn’t even that accessible of a lifestyle for many. (And I’m a Whole 30 veteran!)
A $5 discount box of legit sheetmasks on Amazon goes much further towards making wellness accessible to the masses than Gwyneth suggesting a “cleanse” once a year.
ETA: Ugh this is really still p*ssing me off. SHE is part of how “wellness” became a rich white lady thing! We’ve had our yoga, meditation, and crunchy granola folks for years (thousands of them, actually wrt yoga). And plenty of skincare companies right now are trying to make budget skincare accessible to the masses. SHE ISN’T PART OF THAT!
Belsize Park! Bless her bootstraps!
My God this woman has her head so far up her own arse!
As if ‘breathing and meditation’ were just some ‘rarefied and bizarre’ thing before she came along. Yeah – no dear. You did not change culture. Watch – next she’ll be crowing about being a ‘self-made billionaire’ from Goop.
You must be forgetting when she single-handedly introduced the world to the transformative power of earthing, aka walking outside barefoot.
That part killed me, like her and Goop were the first to bring the world’s attention to those things!
She’s not wrong that women face harder scrutiny than men, but that is not what is happening here. She faces scrutiny because she peddles garbage science and dangerous products.
No thanks to you, Gwynny.
Forward….like over the rim into the toilet forward??
Thanks for inventing yoga and meditation, Gwyneth. Foolish of me to think they existed for thousands of years and come from Indian culture. Spiritual and physical fasting (or what she labeled “detox”) literally exists as a ritual in every religion. What an insufferable moron.
I have enjoyed some of her early movie roles, but have taken exactly zero lessons from her site. She has imparted no wisdom culturally or otherwise that I can see. And acupuncture has been around forever! Is she taking credit?
That is a shockingly bad cover.
Her brushing off this criticism is sending me into a rage. They actually claimed their stupid jade eggs could prevent depression. Having lost numerous friends to suicide because depression went untreated, seeing BS like that sends me over the edge.
The idea women are too stupid to engage with science, and need instead to have steamed fanjos and a bunch of woo to placate their cute little minds is in itself deeply, deeply sexist. Basic critical thinking skills are not gendered. This is packaging insecurity and commodifying fear of aging and death into snake oil sales. She should be ashamed.
And…her skin and hair and clothing are hideous. Wtf?
even the title to this post , ie the simple quote, made me sort of shudder.
she truly is … sort of a delight to find abhorrent.
i think she truly, like, … believes herself. it’s pretty amazing.
… her lack of self-awareness/ situational-awareness (that COVER! my god !!! when she sells super expensive “wellness” shite! ) is becoming positively Trumpian.
i mean, that’s pretty bad.
Her store just opened on my block. They did a beautiful build out (good) but I have to say walking past it multiple times a day makes me a little rage-y. They should provide free meditation for the hood to democratize wellness and all.