Admit It, You Love to Hate Gwyneth
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You don’t need the last name, nobody does.
You’re not alone. Hating Gwyneth Paltrow has long been a national pastime. Mysteriously, it wasn’t Shallow Hal (the 2001 movie that dared ask, “Wouldn’t it be HIlarious to put a skinny lady in a fat suit?”) that did it. The flood of hate came after 2008 when she started a newsletter about her life.
Not only did we marvel at her stupidity — most of us could put this look together for under thirty bucks — but also her tone-deaf approach.
An appeal from a 2010 newsletter I was able to find floating around in my inbox exhorted readers to consider helping others. “[W]hen life’s difficulties come crashing over, what are the ways in which we can offer a little life raft for those who have always been there for us”? She then went on to offer a link to a private chef service. The accompanying photos glowed with the patina of volunteerism. But God forbid you personally do more than click.
Public opinion took a litigious turn as she began to aggressively market her wellness offerings, such as the infamous Jade Egg — retailing for $66 since 2017 — an exerciser for your yoni (by which they meant vagina). Derided as useless by some, and damaging by others, Paltrow’s goop ultimately agreed to pay $125,000 to settle a lawsuit over unscrupulous advertising claims.
Did this slow her down? HELL NO. She leaned right in, adding vibrators, vulva tees, and the arguably more infamous This Smells Like My Vagina candle. Yonis be damned.
It’s been a roller coaster, with me often whipping in diametric opposition to the majority. I absolutely loathed her after Shallow Hal, but a few years into goop, and I was disinclined to pile on. Mind you, I was on welfare at the time I got that newsletter about the private chefs, it wasn’t that I followed her example. I was merely indifferent. Was anybody…
