This is an excerpt from the new episode of the Back Row podcast, featuring a clip from the Gwyneth: The Biography audiobook. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts (though this episode does not have video, many do, and you can find those on YouTube). Follow the show so you don’t miss a single episode. If you like the pod, please leave a rating and a review, which takes ten seconds and is the best way to support an independent show like this one.
This holiday season, Gwyneth Paltrow has been even more public than she usually is as she promotes Marty Supreme. (Those of you who have seen it, please drop your reviews in the comments. I haven’t gone yet but am hearing from people I trust that it’s good but — at 2.5 hours — too long.) In January, Gwyneth will likely remain in the news for the movie as she campaigns for awards. During many previous Januaries, as I documented in my New York Times bestselling book Gwyneth: The Biography, Gwyneth was likely to be in the news, not for a film, but for the annual, highly restrictive “detox” diets she published annually and shamelessly in Goop despite experts’ advice that, well, no one needs to “detox” through a diet.
These eating plans were crucial for Goop, though. Though the media mocked Gwyneth at every turn in those days, the diets helped establish her as a wellness figurehead and Goop as a wellness business. Even if they mostly generated negative headlines, all those did was drive visitors to her site, where they signed up for the newsletter or, after Goop became a store, bought stuff. Revisit the detox diets that started it all in today’s podcast episode — or get the book. Here’s an excerpt of the text:
Before Goop was a Martha Stewart–like universe of product lines and editorial content, it was a humble website. Instagram was about two years off from launching, and the influencer economy was basically a zygote. But Gwyneth was about to tap into the biggest marketing revolution since television.
Around the time [her public television show with Mario Batali] Spain . . . on the Road Again first aired in September 2008, Gwyneth launched Goop.com. It would soon serve as a repository for content she would publish in the Goop newsletter.
Visitors to the site were greeted with the brand name and the tagline “Nourish the Inner Aspect.” Rendered in tasteful, muted colors, the site was divided into sections labeled “Make,” “Go,” “Get,” “Do,” “Be,” and “See.” Initially, each section linked to the same introductory essay, in which Gwyneth wrote, “My life is good because I am not passive about it. I want to nourish what is real, and I want to do it without wasting time. I love to travel, to cook, to eat, to take care of my body and mind, to work hard. I love being a mother who has to overcome my bad qualities to be a good mother. I love being in spaces that are clean and nice . . . Whether you want a good place to eat in London, some advice on where to stay in Austin, the recipe I made up this week, or some thoughts from one of my sages, GOOP is a little bit of everything that makes up my life.”
She advised readers, “Cook a meal for someone you love. Pause before reacting. Clean out your space. Read something beautiful. Treat yourself to something. Go to a city you’ve never been to. Learn something new. Don’t be lazy. Workout and stick with it.”
In those early days, the main purpose of the site was to get people to sign up for the free Goop newsletter, which became Gwyneth’s primary medium for distributing new content. A weekly newsletter freed Gwyneth from uploading new stories every day, as popular blogs did at the time. “We’re having an especially good and creative time in the kitchen right now. I’ll send along some of the recipes I’ve been working on,” she wrote. Subscribers would be privy to “some travel notes, some fashion buys, and some other surprises.” Gwyneth was spending her own money on the venture with no apparent monetization strategy in place.
But as soon as the site went live, the critics went to town. Gwyneth had planted a big fuzzy UGG boot in their sandbox — an online publishing world that magazines and newspapers were still trying to understand and monetize themselves. The Los Angeles Times wrote that “the road ahead looks bumpy for this little operation! It’s not just that apparently no one wants to take life direction from the girl who has it all,” but the site has “so little content,” and “It feels like something that won an award for Web design in 1998.” Regarding the “See,” “Go,” “Do,” etc. categories, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger quipped, “May we recommend ‘Retch’?” Lots of writers mocked “Nourish the Inner Aspect” for not making grammatical sense. And a Daily Mail correspondent joked that the phrase made them wonder “whether I’d accidentally logged on to a site for hemorrhoid cream, but, no I was in the right place.”
Hear more about the controversy, what experts thought about Gwyneth’s diet advice, and more in the Back Row podcast.
And if you prefer to read the book the old-fashioned way, you would support me immensely by buying a hardcover or ebook.
Earlier in Back Row:
