Dear readers,
Before today’s newsletter, a personal note. My next book Gwyneth: The Biography is out tomorrow, July 29. If you have not yet ordered the book, it would mean the world to me if you pre-ordered it online or popped down to your local indie book store this week once it’s out to grab a copy. Buying this book is the best thing you can do to support me as an independent journalist right now. These early and first-week sales are really important for authors like me.
The book is the product of three years of long hours and hard work and interviews with more than 220 sources. It takes an unfiltered view of a subject — Gwyneth Paltrow — whose PR has been largely controlled through glossy magazine profiles and access journalism. You’ll find the same entertaining, unfiltered, and honest writing you read in this newsletter in the book.
This community means the world to me and I can’t thank you enough for your support!
xo
Amy
Over the weekend, my phone blew up with people sending me Gwyneth Paltrow’s promotional video for Astronomer, the company whose CEO resigned after a Coldplay concert kiss cam revealed him embracing the company’s chief people officer.
In the video, Gwyneth describes herself as a “very temporary” spokesperson for Astronomer. Creators and news outlets have called the video brilliant PR. Some, including Molly McPherson and Meredith Lynch, wondered if it was an attempt to distract from headlines stemming from reveals in my book. These have included: that she once called Brad Pitt “dumber than a sack of shit”; that Carolyn Bessette found her irksome; and that her Goop employees have been baffled by her attraction to certain wellness gurus who have no medical training, and are known for making outlandish claims (e.g. Shaman Durek, who has told Goop he died and came back to life).
I do not know what Gwyneth thinks of the book or these headlines or if she thought promoting this company would be a good way to distract from them. What I do know is that it reinforces some themes you’ll read about in Gwyneth: The Biography.
First, she knows how to attract attention online, which has been key to the growth of Goop. Goop became a wellness juggernaut by promoting products and treatments that medical experts advise against, like jade eggs, vaginal steaming, coffee enemas, and raw dairy products. Historically at Goop, when these things became viral news stories, the site would receive a flood of traffic. Those people might buy an expensive wellness product or, say, a G. Label sweater. While this was an effective way to grow Goop and Gwyneth’s audience, she attracted a host of prominent critics who accuse her of profiting off pseudoscience. This Astronomer video certainly drove attention to her, and maybe that indirectly helps boost Goop sales or brand awareness. Even if it doesn’t help Goop’s business…
She was most certainly paid for the video. I learned reporting Gwyneth that when a company did an ad buy with Goop and wanted her to appear in that ad, the brand would do a deal with Goop and a separate deal with her management team. She earns substantial income from endorsement deals. She earned $250,000, I report in Gwyneth, for appearing at the Skims x Swarovski launch party in late 2023, as part of a bigger $1.25 million endorsement deal with Swarovski. She also earned $1.6 million for her controversial appearance at the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia in 2023. (Will Smith and Johnny Depp were among other stars who attended.)
The Astronomer video is another sign that, no matter how much controversy she generates, brands want to work with her. In a review of Gwyneth for Air Mail, Ashley Baker writes, “Since her critically acclaimed role in 1993’s Flesh and Bone, the only public figure who has been more conspicuous is Trump.” And this, really, is what it’s all about for brands in 2025: impressions. Gwyneth drives those brilliantly. However, as I detail in the book, Goop played a crucial role in the growth of Big Wellness — a $6.3 trillion global industry — by sowing a distrust of established science and medical experts. Goop has promoted many wellness products, like “Implant-O-Rama” kits for coffee enemas, that carry adverse health risks and that doctors advise strongly against. (Though coffee enemas have killed people, they are trending on social media these days). It has also published a slew of inaccurate health information, like how drinking celery juice can cure chronic health issues (it can’t). These controversies have barely stood in the way of Gwyneth’s ability to attract business partners like Astronomer.
When reporting the book, I had a lengthy and fascinating interview with University of Alberta Professor Timothy Caulfield, a medical misinformation expert who wrote a book about Gwyneth’s inaccurate health claims. I asked what he made of companies like Netflix and Celebrity Cruises being so willing to forge partnerships with companies like Goop and people like Gwyneth who promote health misinformation. “I think it speaks to how our society has increasingly tolerated pseudoscience and magical thinking,” he told me. “As long as it makes money.”
