Gwyneth Paltrow is an Oscar-winning actress, a best-selling cookbook author, and the founder of a $250 million lifestyle brand. She is also, according to at least one magazine, The Most Hated Celebrity in the World.
Author Amy Odell, who spoke with more than 220 sources over three years for the recently released Gwyneth: The Biography, thinks the reason why the Goop founder is “so triggering” to so many people is because she “has never had an average life.”
Odell sat down with The Daily Beast Podcast to provide some insight into Paltrow’s regularly scrutinized wellness claims and accidental class war commentary—as well as her surprisingly savvy business instincts.
“She has spent her entire life in this very elite, glamorous milieu,” Odell told host Joanna Coles, citing the status of her parents, actress Blythe Danner and the late director Bruce Paltrow.
Paltrow, whose godfather is Steven Spielberg, “grew up around movie stars” on both coasts, Odell said.
“[She] always had money and a financial cushion, and has never known anything else her whole life,” she went on. “And I think what happens with her is she makes these comments where she kind of tries to get on the level of the average person. But she just can’t because she’s never had an average life.”
One example Odell gave was Paltrow’s 2009 remark to ELLE UK amid backlash to the prices showcased by her company, Goop, whose health-related products have frequently been questioned by experts.
“I am who I am,” Paltrow said. “I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”
Odell also cited the actress’ 2014 comments to E! News about juggling acting with her personal life.
“I think it’s different when you have an office job, because it’s routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening,” Paltrow said then. “When you’re shooting a movie, they’re like, ‘We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,’ and then you work 14 hours a day and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as—of course there are challenges—but it’s not like being on set.”
“To her credit,” Odell said, “I think she’s trying to get on the level of someone who’s had a more normal life, but she just can’t because she doesn’t know a normal life.”
Later in the discussion, Odell said the CEO and mother of two can be both distant and engaging, and can draw on her skills as an actress when needed.
“She can be cold, she can be aloof, she can be icy,” Odell said, adding that those close to her compared her to Vogue’s Anna Wintour. “But people say when she’s running Goop, you go into the office—into her office—and she might not look up at you. She’s busy. She just wants you to say your thing so you can get your answer and move on, because she’s a business person. She’s running the company.”
“At the same time, she can be very warm, very charismatic,” Odell said.
“If she wants you to feel like you’re her best friend, she can make you feel that way, and her acting experience really helped her in the business world,” she went on.
“When she was raising money for Goop—it’s raised around $140 million—she could remember what to say in the investor pitches and then deliver it perfectly, like she’s reciting a script.”
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