Amy Odell has written Gwyneth: A Biography, and it will be released in a few days. People Magazine, Page Six and Us Weekly have all published excerpts from the book, and there’s been a lot of interest in the vintage ‘90s gossip, especially the stuff about Gwyneth Paltrow’s relationships with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. This biography is not authorized and Odell did not interview Gwyneth – Odell approached Paltrow and her people and they turned her down. But I believe Odell when she talks about how many people she spoke to, and I think this book is probably pretty accurate. Odell gave an exclusive interview to Vanity Fair to promote the book – you can read the VF piece here. Some highlights:

Gwyneth’s parking space at Goop: “Reserved for G-Spot,” reads the sign on Goop CEO Gwyneth Paltrow’s company parking space, according to Amy Odell’s reporting in her new biography. Gwyneth is “one of the most resented celebrities in the world.”

Gwyneth was a major nepo baby: “I mean, nature and nurture, who knows? The doors would open for her. But when she walked in the room, she would deliver. People would say she was a knockout. She was great. She was mesmerizing. I heard that a lot. I mean, she didn’t get every part. When she wanted What About Bob? the casting director of that film said he needed someone funny, and she wasn’t funny.”

Gwyneth’s milieu: “I also think that’s important in understanding the Goop part because she was in the milieu that she has been in her whole life, this rarefied, glamorous, wealthy milieu. She never knew anything else. People told me her father had amazing taste and clothes and home interiors. He studied art at Tulane, and she seemed to absorb that. That really helped her market Goop.”

What happened to Gwyneth’s career after she won the Oscar: “Well, Hollywood calls that the Oscar Curse. Some people might say that it’s just hard to find another role after you ascend to the pinnacle of your career. And she was 26. So young. And then you’ve reached the peak. People told me that she seemed to have a little bit of a crisis like, “Oh my God, now what am I going to do?” She wanted to do comedy and slapstick stuff, and that just didn’t work. She seemed to succeed the most when she was in roles that were similar to her life. The director of A Perfect Murder said he wanted to cast her because she was that woman. She had lived on the Upper East Side, understood that world. Emma, she plays an aristocratic, well-to-do, even though it’s hundreds of years ago, young woman. Great Expectations, too. Even though that wasn’t the best movie, and [director] Alfonso Cuarón has kind of denounced it, she’s memorable. You remember she wore that green outfit by Donna Karan. And then Royal Tenenbaums, too. They were a well-to-do family.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy & Gwyneth: “I just know that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, her job, she was basically dressing VIPs at Calvin Klein. And that’s how she met JFK Jr., because he came in to get a custom fitting. So Gwyneth was one of the people, because Calvin Klein wanted to dress her, because she’s this young glamorous actress doing highbrow movies, and quite frankly, people told me repeatedly she had the thin body type that he wanted to see wearing his clothes, those ‘90s slip dresses. She would go by the office and pick out clothes. She would encounter Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. I talked to people close to her who said Gwyneth just kind of irked her, and she would see a picture of Gwyneth in the newspaper and have kind of a smart remark about it.

What happened with Winona Ryder: “Probably part of it is the chaos of [being in her 20s]. It seemed to me like she was viewing Winona through the eyes of Ben Affleck, in a way, and how Ben viewed his friend’s girlfriend. But the Shakespeare in Love—obviously that’s lore, right? That she pulled the script off of Winona’s coffee table. What happened was she was sent the script, she might not have read it because she had just done Emma and she said she didn’t want to do another period film. Then the producer bumps into her on the street and is like, “Why aren’t you doing this movie? It’s Tom Stoppard, it’s amazing. Why wouldn’t you do it?” It sounded to me like what happened was she was staying with Winona and she picked the script up off of her table and read it, and then decided to commit.

Gwyneth is a true believer in the quack science she shills: I wanted to know if Gwyneth really believed in the things that she was publishing and selling. And people said that she did. She really believed in those gurus. I mean, you guys have covered them. Shaman Durek [Verrett], he’s quite fascinating. But he said in one of his books that part of the reason doctors prescribe chemotherapy to cancer patients is because they make money off of it. [Durek didn’t respond to VF’s request for comment.] These are the things that experts find really troubling. And the jade egg—did she really believe in that stuff? People said they didn’t understand it, but she did believe in that stuff.

Gwyneth’s impact on the wellness industry: “Goop did two things that I think were really important for the wellness industry. One, they gave it this gorgeous aspirational aesthetic that resonates with people. And two, they gave wellness a rhetoric and a language, talking about toxins and getting them out of your life, and clean beauty, clean eating. But also Goop sowed a distrust of western medicine, of established science, promoted the idea that you should do your own research and find out the truth. That’s kind of what we’re seeing now, with RFK Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. A lot of his ideas are about the ingredients in our food. Seed oils. Like, seed oils are fine. Vilifying these things that are fine, meanwhile cutting Medicaid. One public health expert said to me, “You hear wellness people talk about toxins and how they might cause cancer. You never hear them say the HPV vaccine is a really great way to prevent cancer.” I was like, “What is Gwyneth’s legacy?” And Dr. Jen Gunter told me, “I think she showed the world that wellness is something that can be monetized.” Another expert, Dr. Andrea Love said, “Facts aren’t profitable.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Odell also talks about how she communicated with Harvey Weinstein through his lawyers/reps, and Weinstein told her some interesting stuff about the business side of Gwyneth in the ‘90s and early ‘00s – basically, that after she won her Oscar, she was commanding such big paychecks, no one could hire her for the smaller films which she really would have thrived in. There was also a convoluted story about Gwyneth’s brother possibly directing something, and I don’t know how much stock I put into all of that. I think all of the stuff about Goop and the wellness industry is a much-needed conversation though – while it’s fun to gossip about Gwyneth’s romantic history, I’m glad Odell is like: no, really, Gwyneth is partially to blame for this anti-science political movement.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Netflix Press.