Gwyneth Paltrow covers the WSJ. Magazine, and it’s actually a cute editorial if you’re sick of Christmas-themed photoshoots. It’s very beachy and Gwyneth’s body looks bangin’ in all of the swimsuits – you can see the editorial here. Unfortunately, that’s my only compliment here, because this WSJ. Magazine interview is Classic Goop, in that she is just THE WORST. I’m actually appalled by how a publication like the Wall Street Journal would help whitewash Gwyneth’s pseudoscience. Hilariously, though, they do quote her liberally, especially when she’s being super-snotty. Some highlights:
Gossip in the ‘90s: “Cameron Diaz and I talk about this all the time. We’re like, ‘Thank God in the early ’90s there were [so few] paparazzi. Thank God.’ We cry in gratitude that no one was following us around and seeing what we were doing. I remember when Brad Pitt and I broke up, it was on the cover of the New York Post and there was no one outside my house. That would never happen today.”
Her marriage to Brad Falchuk: “It’s fantastic. I feel like we are probably better equipped to choose our life partner when we are halfway through life. But generally, we have to pick our spouses a lot earlier because of the whole procreation piece. For me it has been more of a process, and so I feel really lucky to have met this person who is an incredible, true partner.”
Their blended family: “We are still doing it in our own way. With teenage kids, you’ve got to tread lightly. It’s pretty intense, the teenage thing. I’ve never been a stepmother before. I don’t know how to do it.”
Goop is on the forefront of pseudoscience: “We’re trailblazers. We’re going to write about sh-t that people haven’t heard of. It’s often women’s sexual health that is the most triggering.”
On the fines she’s had to pay for promoting fake science as actual science: “I’m so happy to suffer those slings and arrows, because if you look at the culture from then to now, people are so curious. It’s so beautiful to see people feeling empowered by natural solutions or ancient modalities alongside science and medicine.
Gwyneth invented yoga: “Forgive me if this comes out wrong, but I went to do a yoga class in L.A. recently and the 22-year-old girl behind the counter was like, ‘Have you ever done yoga before?’ And literally I turned to my friend, and I was like, ‘You have this job because I’ve done yoga before.’ ”
Her early years as an actress-brand: “I felt like I had hit all of those benchmarks. I’m very competitive with myself and I thought, Well, what am I supposed to do now? On some level I had gotten the message, ‘If you’re not achieving something that’s quantifiable, you might not be worth that much.’ Somehow, that wire got fused together in my head. So, I was like, How do I keep achieving something?”
The Goop Businesswoman: “In one way you think, ‘Oh, my God. I hit the freaking jackpot. I won the lottery. I get to be this person, and that served as a platform for me to start my business and to have all this incredible access to amazing people and artists and designers, and I’ve had such a fascinating life.’ And then on the other hand, you get old and a little grumpy and you just want to kind of be a hermit. I’m here one f—ing time. I want an incredible life. I used to be in my trailer, smoking a cigarette and waiting for Ethan Hawke to open the door. Now look at me.”
[From WSJ. Magazine & People]
BOW DOWN PEASANTS. Gwyneth invented yoga. You wouldn’t even own a yoga mat if it wasn’t for Gwyneth! I find her appropriation of an ancient Indian tradition to be… hilarious and frightening. As for this: “It’s often women’s sexual health that is the most triggering.” If Gwyneth came at the “women’s sexual health” conversation with research, science and data, I would applaud her. But I sometimes feel like Gwyneth is one of the reasons why conversations about women’s sexual health aren’t taken seriously, because she treats gynecology as a “Western theory” which is just one of many “ideas” that we should embrace, along with her jade eggs and biscuit-steaming and whatever else she thinks she invented.
Photos courtesy of Getty, cover courtesy of WSJ.Magazine.
But…. what about Madonna? Or even Ginger Spice?! I remember seeing photos of them doing yoga years before Gwyneth. Obviously yoga is an ancient practice and wasn’t invented by any of the women mentioned above, but if we’re going to discuss rich white women ‘introducing’ yoga ‘to the culture’, then I’m not sure it’s GP we shoud be talking about…
And I say this as someone who isn’t a Goop-hater. I read the site, I listen to the podcast, I buy the skincare etc
My mother was doing yoga in the early to mid 80s before Madonna and before Iron Man’s college dropout girlfriend had even stepped one pretentious foot on the fame stage. She’s an idiot. But luckily for her there are plenty of rich idiots to buy her garbage.
Same. My mom was super-into yoga in the 80s. And Feng Shui in the early 90s before it was popular. Why the pissing match, Gwynnie?
My friend’s mother in rural Nova Scotia was practicing in the 70s. She’s just pissed the girl didn’t recognize her lolllll. Just another fried-hair middle aged LA blonde who doesn’t eat enough.
I was literally thinking that as I read that quote. No bish, yoga got big with rich skinny white women because of Madonna. But lol Gwenyth.
Ha! Jackie Kennedy was photographed on the beach in Greece doing yoga after she married Aristotle Onassis back in the late sixties/early seventies – and she kept practicing her whole life.
Yoga might not have taken off in the mainstream until the nineties, but Gwyneth certainly wasn’t the first. And considering she’s been aping Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s style since the nineties, it’s an added bit of irony, no?
Madonna also introduced Reformer Pilates to the mainstream – I’ve been doing it on and off for the past 6 months and its very good. I always remember seeing photo’s of her on the machine and talking about it non stop for a while – she’s still a devotee of it.
I bet Princess Diana was glad there weren’t any paparazzi in the early 90s…
ba-dum-bum
but seriously, I get what she’s saying about that. There were paparazzi (hello Liz Taylor/Richard Burton – they actually invented that), but it wasn’t like it is today, with the 24 hour news cycle, TMZ, twitter etc. I’ll bet most famous people who came of age in the 90s thank their lucky stars it wasn’t like it is today.
But imagine the gossip…
@Shazbot, I get what you are saying. I graduated high school in the late 80s, and college in the mid 90s. My friends and I joke that we are so happy the internet and social media didn’t exist/was in its infancy back then.
How about Indians who have been doing yoga for thousands of years????
Someone has to be the queen of bland white women with too much money and Gwyneth has always wanted that title, so I guess props to her for being head of the Porsche hatchback brigade.
She barely graduated from Spence so all this pseudoscience must finally make her feel smart and informed. Easier than getting an actual education.
And was Christy Turlington the aspirational white woman who popularized yoga in the US? Who actually was it because I don’t think it was Gwyneth.
I don’t know how Christy Turlington identifies but her mother is from El Salvador. But you are right, she was into yoga WAY before Gwyneth, as was Madonna… G’s from LA, isn’t she?? There is an entire STATE that appropriated yoga and adopted wellness before she was a twinkle in her parents’ eyes.
she is so full of herself she needs to hang a mug on her ass to catch the excess
she’s so far up herself she can see the light of day from her arse!
so now she thinks she’s the Beatles? I think they might have been the first very famous people promoting yoga? I’m fairly sure yoga was getting popular in the 70s.
I do remember as a child of the 70’s in my western country, to first read about yoga as an influence when I read old articles about the Beatles. I used to read a lot of history and geography books, and the references to yoga were very particular to the hindu culture. Later it became more known, but it seems it slowly grew, particularly in the time of the sports videos, the you could buy and practice from home, at least in my country it took a long time to take, and no mention of traibrazer goopy/guppy
I really dislike how obnoxious she comes across in that gym quote, blah.
Amazing photos!!!
She loves to name drop doesn’t she. I didn’t really care about her before but she is starting to annoy me.
Bitch invented yoga!! How disresepctful to all the yogis throughout history. Ugh she’s the worst. The absolute worst. Every time I think she’s hit rock bottom of being the worst she manages to get even WORSE.
My husband saw the header pic and goes, “Hey, it’s Gump! Poop? What does she call herself?”
Thats a beautiful picture of her though!
Agree, really nice cover 🙂
Just when i thought she couldn’t be any more pretentious. 🙄
Her comment about the young lady at the counter was not just her being pretentious but down right b!tchy. Its part of the job to ask if you have done this before, it protects you and the studio if you lie and say yes then end up injuring yourself before going on to sue them out of business.
I hadn’t thought of that @Digital Unicorn, so true. My first thought was how I tell myself to be patient, because I was that 22-year-old at one point, not in exactly the same way and not in LA and, for certain, Gwyneth was that 22-year-old.
Good God, I hope she just whispered that a$$hole yoga comment to her friend rather than say it out loud to the poor receptionist. What a tool.
Let’s be honest, she hardly conquered the acting world. Her brief success was due to nepotism and celebrity (dating Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Luke Wilson).
I would cry with gratitude if she would STFU.