For famous faces all throughout Hollywood, the vast majority often don’t breathe a word publicly without the approval of their management team. But for Gwyneth Paltrow, her chaotic commentary often goes unchecked, and for that, we thank her.
Whether she’s being interviewed or is promoting her wellness brand Goop, there’s never a moment where the Politician star isn’t harnessing her jade-egg-fuelled power or spouting words of advice. And while, sure, some of her ‘advice’ can be considered harmful, a lot of it is also worth a giggle or two.
In fact, Gwyneth has had so many chaotic moments—from victimising nepotism to peddling $100 chocolate toothpaste—the Academy Award-winning actress has garnered a legion of fans waiting with bated breath for her next controversial comment. And quite frankly, given her penchant for hilarious opinions, we somewhat look forward to what leaves her mouth next.
And aside from her radiant complexion—let’s all thank the bees—and her famous herringbone highlights, it makes sense to commemorate one of her most talked about characteristics: her sharp wit and deadpan sense of humour.
Below, the most chaotic and eyebrow-raising comments that have ever left Gwyneth Paltrow’s mouth.
Her Victimisation of Nepotism
Appearing in an episode of Hailey Bieber’s YouTube series, Who’s In My Bathroom?, Gwyneth and the Rhode skincare founder began chatting about their similar childhoods with famous parents. Bieber, who is the daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin, asked the mother-of-two how her own parents’ A-list spotlight played a part in her successful career.
As we know, Gwyneth is the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and the late director Bruce Paltrow. But according to the Goop founder, children born into a famous family don’t have that much of a leg up when it comes to their careers.
“As the child of someone, you get access other people don’t have, so the playing field is not level in that way,” she told Bieber.
“However, I really do feel that once your foot is in the door, which you unfairly got in, then you almost have to work twice as hard and be twice as good because people are ready to pull you down and say ‘You don’t belong there’ and ‘You are only there because of your dad or your mom’, or whatever the case may be.”
But she didn’t stop there, she then moved on to giving advice to fellow nepotism babies and urged them not to let the negative opinions of others impact their lives.
“It shouldn’t limit you because what I believe is that nobody in the world, especially somebody who doesn’t know you, should have a negative impact on your path or the decisions that you make,” she said.
“I agree, I need to hear this today,” Bieber replied, with a smile, seemingly unaware of the privilege that’s formed her life.
Her, Uh, Fascinating Take on Hollywood and Reese Witherspoon
Naturally, Gwyneth has had many opinions on Hollywood, and understandably so, given that she has been working in the industry for the past 32 years. But occasionally, she shares some words on the industry that can come across as, well, a little bit tone deaf.
For example, in a 2009 interview with Elle UK, she explained that she could never resonate with someone who earns a regular wage after her years of fame.
“I am who I am,” she told the outlet. “I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”
And when it comes to celebrity status, there’s nothing that screams fame more than attending the Met Gala, which costs a cheeky $35K per ticket. But for Gwyneth, the event was nothing to gawk over and regular folk shouldn’t care so much about the illustrious event.
“Do you want me to be honest? [The Met Gala] sucked,” she told Australia’s Kyle and Jackie Show in May 2013.
“It seems like it’s the best thing in the world, you always think, ‘Oh my god, it’s gonna be so glamorous and amazing and you’re going to see all these people,’ and then you get there and it’s so hot and it’s so crowded and everyone’s pushing you.”
But most confusing of all was Gwyneth’s criticism of Reese Witherspoon’s choice in filmography. In an interview with The Guardian in January 2006, she shared her thoughts on Reese’s choice to work on romantic comedies. Her comments were rather ironic, given that Gwyneth had played the love interest in the 2001 romantic comedy, Shallow Hal, five years prior.
“Even actresses that you really admire, like Reese Witherspoon, you think, ‘Another romantic comedy?'” she told the outlet. “You see her in something like Walk the Line and think, ‘God, you’re so great!’ And then you think, ‘Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?’ But of course, it’s for money and status.”
The Goop-ification of Gwyneth
Once she founded her lifestyle and wellness brand in 2008, the Goop-ification of Gwyneth slowly began. From A-list actress to mother-of-two, her foray into the lifestyle category saw Gwyn’s next chapter include everything from detoxes to intimating fasting. But more often than not, she shared her surreal, ‘we’re just a grain of sand compared to the universe’ moments which became some of the most out-of-nowhere commentary of all time.
In her 2011 cookbook, My Father’s Daughter, she opened up about her experience gardening and the feelings that overcome her when she walks past her produce.
“When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat,” she wrote.
And in a 2013 interview with Harper’s BAZAAR, she shared how she took herself on a three-day solo trip to a retreat in Sedona, Arizona. And when she was there, she hallucinated having a conversation with rocks.
“Every day I set an intention, and on the third day I said, ‘I would like some guidance in terms of these life decisions that are coming up.’ I’ll never forget it,” she told the publication.
“I was starting to hike up the Red Rocks, and honestly, it was as if I’d heard the rock say: ‘You have the answers. You are your teacher.’ I thought I was having an auditory hallucination.”
The Infamous Jade Egg Saga
When you hear the name Gwyneth Paltrow and the word Goop together, it’s understandable to immediately think of the Jade Egg Saga of 2017. Unfamiliar? Allow us to refresh your memory.
That year, the lifestyle and wellness brand sold a $66 jade “egg” that the brand claimed could improve a multitude of things: from orgasms and hormonal imbalances to “feminine energy” when used inside the vagina.
However, in the swiftest of fashion, gynaecologists quickly responded to the claims and warned women that using the jade eggs could actually be quite dangerous.
In fact, the infamous jade eggs saw Goop hit with a $145K fine because of its “unsubstantiated marketing claims”. Moral of the story: perhaps seek a doctor’s opinion before adding a jade egg to your shopping cart.
The Deadly Bee Venom Therapy
Naturally, this wasn’t the last time that Goop would promote a rather controversial wellness procedure. In 2016, Gwyneth sat for an interview with The New York Times where she spoke about bee sting therapy, a painful but ancient technique said to reduce inflammation and skin scarring. She later sung the method’s praises on the Goop website.
The therapy is an extreme form of apitherapy and utilises the active compound in bee venom with anti-inflammatory properties to benefit the skin. However, as bee stings typically can, this method can cause anaphylactic shock or in extreme cases strokes in those who are allergic.
And while Gwyneth claimed that being stung by bees helped her to “completely eliminate an old injury, the BBC reported that one woman even died in 2018 after two years of regularly undergoing the procedure.
Vaginal Rejuvenation and V-Steams
The Notorious And Best-Selling Candles
But alas, Gwyneth was far from finished with the female reproductive system. In early 2020, the actress turned to aromatherapy to launch her most infamous products yet—the ‘This Smells Like My Vagina‘ and ‘This Smells Like My Orgasm’ candles.
According to Paltrow, the fragrances “started as a joke” but after they sold-out within hours, she realised that they were quite the conversation starter.
“I was with the nose Douglas Little for his brand Heretic and we were kind of messing around,” she said in a 2020 interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers. “And I smelled this beautiful thing, and I was like, ‘That smells like my vagina.’ And I was kidding, obviously. And we were on mushrooms.” However, Gwyn quickly clarified that “no, we weren’t on mushrooms” when they created candles themselves.
And following up the vagina scent, the Glee star also launched a ‘This Smells Like My Orgasm’ candle in June 2020. According to the Goop website, the fragrance is a “sexy, surprising and wildly addictive” scent that is made up of “tart grapefruit, neroli, and ripe cassis berries blended with gunpowder tea and Turkish rose”. Make of that what you will.
Her Interesting Opinions On Commonly Consumed Foods
One of the most controversial topics for Gwyneth is food. While what she enjoys is easy to assume, it’s her reaction to regular food that may not fall into the organic, ultra-healthy category that she simply cannot stand.
Chatting with the talk show host, she said that she’d “rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup” and during an iTunes Music festival in 2011, she reportedly said she’d “rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin”, as per Us Weekly.
And when it comes to sharing a cheeky vino or two with her social circle, she wants the world to know that she dislikes people who can’t “hold their liquor”.
“I don’t really have drunk friends,” she told The Guardian in 2006. “My friends are kind of adult; they have a drink. But they hold their liquor. I think it’s incredibly embarrassing when people are drunk. It just looks so ridiculous. I find it very degrading.”
She Believes That She Is The Reason Why Yoga Exists
The Avengers: Infinity War star came under fire for her “out of touch” comments about the yoga movement, and how she believes she played a pivotal role in its creation.
In a 2018 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gwyneth wholeheartedly spouted that the reason a woman who worked at a yoga studio had a job was because of her.
“Forgive me if this comes out wrong,” she told the outlet.
“But I went to do a yoga class in LA 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.’”
Of course, we advise taking a grain of salt (metaphorically, of course) when it comes to the commentary of the Goop founder.
Calling Her ‘Boyfriend Breakfasts’ For Her Husband Are A “Feminist Statement”
Talking about the romantic tradition she started when dating her now-husband Brad Falchuk, Gwyneth maintains that making him a ‘boyfriend breakfast’ every weekend is a “feminist statement”.
“When Brad was just my boyfriend, I started a tradition of making him breakfast every Saturday morning,” Gwyneth wrote beneath a Vogue cooking video.
“Coming up with surprising menus, the prepping and cooking was a way for me to disconnect with the other stresses of my life and direct my focus on my boyfriend! It became this very special moment for us. They are called boyfriend breakfasts to this day.”
In the full video, the Goop founder explained how the tradition came to be while cooking a frittata, where she shared how she believes that cooking for her husband—which some consider a misogynistic expectation for women—is actually a nod to feminism.
“I noticed that when I would tell people that I really love to cook for Brad, some of my friends were like, ‘Wow, that’s so old-fashioned’. And they were kind of teasing me about it,” she said.
Gwyneth continued, “So I kind of started pondering this question of, Can you be a feminist and still like to do domestic things, and kind of care for the people you love in that way? It facilitated kind of an interesting discussion around what it means to be a feminist.”
“I actually think it’s a strong feminist statement to cook for the people that you love if you want to.”
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