Gwyneth Paltrow and her website Goop have basically done to science what air travel did to the careers of Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. Even though Paltrow’s father died when she was 30, he lived long enough to tell her she was “becoming an asshole.” In a recent interview with Marie Claire UK, Paltrow elaborated on story and explained how her dad calling her out and his death a few years later shaped her into the person she is today.
I mention her father taking her to one side, when she was about 27, and telling her that she was ‘becoming an asshole’. ‘I was just believing my own hype, thinking that I was super-awesome. And he was like, “You’re getting weird – you’re acting like a dick”,’ she laughs. ‘When you achieve the kind of fame that I did by the time I was 25 or 26, the world starts removing all your obstacles because you’re now a “special person”,’ she continues, with a raised eyebrow. ‘You don’t have to wait in line at a restaurant, and if a car doesn’t show up, someone else gives you theirs,’ she says. ‘There is nothing worse for the growth of a human being than not having obstacles and disappointments, and things go wrong. All of my greatest achievements have come out of failure.’
And to Paltrow’s credit, she has long been open about her struggles and challenges – including the death of her father from cancer when she was 30, which propelled her towards a deeper interest in wellness, having watched him undergo radiation and be fed through a tube.
Unfortunately, the person it shaped her into is one that things shoves rocks in your vagina while you’re having it steam-cleaned. She also sells vampire repellent, which is not so much a wellness product but it’s still fucking crazy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if it wasn’t for shitty new-age bullshit of the kind Paltrow pushes on her website, Steve Jobs might still be alive and our giant iPhones wouldn’t be pieces of s**t now.