Gwyneth Paltrow may not have known as she headed into Goop’s weekly staff meeting one January morning in 2017 that the company was about to be hit by one of its biggest controversies.
Goop, which Gwyneth had started as a lifestyle newsletter nearly ten years earlier, sometimes promoted wacky products that attracted headlines and boosted sales.
A recent offering was an ‘energy clearing kit’ – contents: a wooden box, a bundle of sage, a feather fan, an incense-burning bowl and a ‘potion’. It failed to attract much attention, however, and Goop sold only 100.
But the egg-shaped stone Goop had plugged in the newsletter five days before, and now sold in jade (£48) or rose quartz (£40), was an entirely different story. Gwyneth believed in the eggs, which Goop expert Shiva Rose had recommended inserting vaginally and leaving there for as long as a full night.
Rose claimed in Goop that these ‘yoni eggs’ could do everything from ‘increase orgasm’ to ‘balance the cycle’ to ‘invigorate our life force’. The media quickly noticed.
‘Gwyneth Paltrow wants you to put a rock in your vagina. Seriously,’ offered news website Mashable. Canadian gynaecologist Jen Gunter accused Gwyneth of ‘profiting from snake oil’ and warned that the eggs could lead to potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome.
That day Gwyneth delivered her weekly address to staff as though nothing was amiss.
Gwyneth Paltrow at her ‘In Goop Health’ event in London, 2019
‘We are the number one voice in the wellness movement,’ Gwyneth told her team. ‘Goop defined the concept of modern wellness and created the language to describe it. Let’s own it.’ As she spoke, 2,000 customers were on a waiting list to buy the eggs.
Goop had long served as a platform for Gwyneth’s favoured gurus of the moment. Osteopathic doctor Habib Sadeghi, for instance, had contributed an article suggesting (falsely) that there could be a link between bras and breast cancer.
And energy medicine author Linda Lancaster had proposed that readers undergo an eight-day raw goat milk cleanse to rid themselves of hidden parasites (this is not medically advised). But those controversies had simply driven publicity for Goop.
In 2018 California district attorneys sued Goop over the health claims it had made about both the eggs and another product, the ‘Inner Judge Flower Essence Blend’ of essential oils.
The company paid a fine, admitted no wrongdoing, and continued selling eggs until earlier this year without making the same claims.
Goop was a business, after all. ‘She is f***ing borderline brilliant,’ a former executive said. ‘GP knows exactly what she’s doing.’
Gwyneth attends a Goop skincare media launch event in New York in 2016
Still grieving for her father and unsure where to direct her ambition, Gwyneth had begun forming attachments to a series of wellness gurus in the early 2000s.
In the spring of 2004, then pregnant with her first child, Apple, she visited designer Stella McCartney, who had organised a baby shower at her English country retreat.
The weekend included sessions with osteopath Vicky Vlachonis. ‘After weeks of suffering from unrelenting back pain and anxiety about the birth, her hands lifted it all away, leaving me feeling light and at peace. I felt ready for the baby,’ Gwyneth later wrote.
‘As an osteopath, she understands that a pain in the back is rarely just a pain in the back – it may also be a dysfunction in the ovary or the gut, the thyroid or the liver. And, perhaps more important, she understands that the pain almost always connects to the heart.’
Nobody seemed to have taught Gwyneth what to do with grief, doubt or self-reproach. She had no vocabulary for it in her own experience.
Habib Sadeghi, whom Gwyneth described as ‘a conventionally trained physician who also practises other integrative healing methods’, including ‘osteopathic manipulative medicine, techniques from the world of Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine, anthroposophical medicine, acupuncture and energy healing’ was, she said, ‘the kind of doctor I had been searching for’.
Sadeghi asked her ‘what unspoken emotions could be contributing to (her) stress,’ and put her through tests which revealed ‘high levels of metals and a blood parasite, among other things’ that she believed often went ‘undiagnosed’ and caused, she has written, ‘incredibly negative impacts on our wellbeing’.
Friends and colleagues wondered about Gwyneth’s susceptibility to wellness gurus. She had rarely been challenged in her life, rarely told she was wrong. And no one close to her had the confidence to say they believed she was perhaps being swindled.
Given her lifetime of privilege, as health law professor Timothy Caulfield has noted: ‘There’s almost the narcissistic quality that she can figure out the truth (that others are missing).
‘There’s really interesting research about those people who believe misinformation, believe conspiracy theories.
Shiva Rose had recommended inserting the Goop rose quartz egg vaginally and leaving there for as long as a full night
‘They like the idea that they figured something out and they have special knowledge, a special ability to discern the truth – and I get the sense that’s happening with Gwyneth.’
Goop went live in September 2008. Visitors to the new site were greeted with the tagline ‘Nourish the Inner Aspect’. Rendered in tasteful, muted colours, it was divided into sections labelled ‘Make’, ‘Go’, ‘Get’, ‘Do’, ‘Be’, and ‘See’.
In an introductory essay, 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.’
Goop was a window into a certain elitism. And people couldn’t look away.
Utah’s Amangiri is considered one of the world’s most exclusive and stunning resorts, its signature understated luxury making it a natural fit for inclusion in Goop’s travel guides – the cheap rooms cost around $4,000 (£3,000) per night.
Gwyneth travelled there with Brad Falchuk, the producer of TV drama series Glee, in July 2014, around four months after her conscious uncoupling announcement marking the end of her marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
Though there was speculation that Gwyneth and Falchuk’s romance began before she and Martin separated, no one I have interviewed said Falchuk caused the break-up.
The two had a lot in common. They both loved travelling and fine dining and were compatible in a way that friends hadn’t seen with Martin.
Before her divorce from Martin was finalised in 2016, Gwyneth expounded on the creation of a blended family. ‘I’m very, very lucky in that I have a partner who’s willing to do it with me in a really collaborative way. And I’m really for Chris and he’s really for me,’ she said.
Gwyneth and Brad Falchuk attend a Netflix Premiere in New York City in 2019
Though Gwyneth wholeheartedly committed to consciously uncoupling for the sake of her children, she did admit to co-workers how eager she’d been to purge one relic of her first marriage. ‘I definitely didn’t want that mattress around,’ employees heard her say at the Goop office.
‘I had to get that energy out of the house. I had to change that mattress. Ew.’
Falchuk, one observer said, ‘really likes being Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband’. The two waited to move in together until some time after their lavish 2018 wedding.
He would spend four nights a week at her home and the other three at the place he shared with his two children from his previous marriage. Gwyneth said her intimacy coach, Michaela Boehm – whose CV included a psychology degree, ‘spiritual explorations with Celtic Mysticism,’ and training in yoga and improvisation – endorsed this arrangement for bringing ‘polarity’ into the Falchuk-Paltrow marriage.
‘Oh, all my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal and we shouldn’t change a thing,’ Gwyneth said.
While Gwyneth presented a polished, happy image of Goop in the media, the office culture was often noxious and chaotic, some employees from the time said. The problems stemmed from the executive suite, where a group of high-powered women struggled to navigate Gwyneth’s impatience and perfectionism.
But, say the sources, there was something about these women – all smart, ambitious and impressive in their own right – working for a celebrity that led them to treat one another like they were on The Real Housewives TV show.
They seemed threatened by each other, based on whom Gwyneth was favouring at a given moment. Employees who worked up the nerve to go into her office were often met with impatience, an attitude of ‘What do you want? Get it over with. Let’s move on’.
If an employee replied to one of her emails with ‘Thanks’ or ‘On it’, she’d tell them not to send those emails, because they were a waste of time.
Gwyneth was rarely harsh with a subordinate, but her capricious, indirect leadership style led to resentments. She was also frugal when it came to both Goop’s and her own expenses. Lacking a budget for freelancers, editors were overworked and underpaid.
Not only was the pace and breadth of work unsustainable for employees, it would also prove unsustainable for Goop.
Meanwhile the brand continued to attract controversy. After she started seeing Falchuk, Gwyneth’s interest in sexual wellness seemed to pique and she launched what she cast as a crusade to remove the stigma from women’s sexuality.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s viral Goop candle titled This Smells Like My Vagina
Goop’s first sex issue, published in 2016, covered everything from ‘toxic’ lubricant (Goop offered a ‘non-toxic’ version) to ‘not-so-basic sex toys’, like a $15,000 (£11,000) 24-carat gold vibrator.
Around January 2020, Gwyneth and Douglas Little, founder of fragrance brand Heretic, came up with an idea they apparently thought was hilarious: The ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’ candle, which Goop sold for $75 (£55).
Unsurprisingly, reviewers and buyers wondered whether the candle smelled specifically like Gwyneth’s vagina. In fact, the scent was composed of ‘geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with damask rose and ambrette seed’. It sold out in days.
Naturally, Gwyneth followed up with a candle called ‘This Smells Like My Orgasm’.
During the company’s first-ever health conference in Los Angeles, the actress Miranda Kerr told the crowd she had recently used leeches to suck blood from her back in an effort to ‘detoxify’. She continued, ‘I had a leech facial as well. And I kept the leeches. They’re in my koi pond.’
‘Wow!’ Gwyneth said, laughing. ‘I thought I was batshit crazy!’
Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour had become the artistic director of the magazine’s parent company, Conde Nast, in 2013, which gave her oversight of all publications in the portfolio.
Around 2017 Anna invited Gwyneth to Conde Nast to talk about the idea of collaborating on a print magazine. Advertising revenue was down across traditional media, and the company was looking for partners that could combine high-quality journalism with an appeal to high-end advertisers. As a luxury media brand, Goop made sense. Both parties would profit if the magazine worked.
Several months before the first issue was due to come out, Gwyneth and Goop’s then head of content Elise Loehnen met editors at Conde Nast, according to three people present. The meeting was humming along when Anna interrupted to say: ‘Gwyneth, do you know Carolyn? She’s the editor-in-chief of Self, our health and wellness brand. Carolyn was telling me that she has some concerns about the way you do your reporting.’
Carolyn Kylstra had told Anna before the meeting that associating with Goop could be risky for a company that also published respected, rigorous journalism in Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.
‘You really need to make sure they use fact-checkers,’ she told Anna, ‘because they don’t really use science. They’re not using evidence-based medicine when they give advice, and they give health advice that can be problematic’.
Anna had a habit of asking people to repeat comments made in private to the people they concerned.
‘I’m sure there are ways that we can collaborate,’ Carolyn said during the meeting, directing the comment to Gwyneth. ‘We could do something around beauty or food. There’s travel.
‘I think one area where it probably doesn’t make sense for us to collaborate is around health and wellness. We have a different approach to how we report, and we generally rely on evidence and evidence-based medicine when we’re making recommendations, and your approach doesn’t really align with our brand.’
Despite the reservations, the brief Vegas marriage between Conde Nast and Goop went ahead.
Anna and Gwyneth got along well at first. Anna would call her ‘baby’ in meetings, greeting her on the phone: ‘Hi, baby.’
Bob Sauerberg, Conde’s chief executive at the time, said: ‘It was a love-fest in the early days.’
Gwyneth attends the In Goop Health summit at 3Labs in 2018 in Culver City, California
The impression on the Conde side, however, was that Goop wanted to take years-old articles from their own website and repackage them for the magazine in the hope of giving them new life.
An editor on Conde’s special-issues team would polish up a Goop piece, then send it to the magazine’s fact-checkers, who would mark up all the unverifiable claims and send it back.
Anna told her team that Goop in print needed to be fact-checked to the same standard as all other Conde Nast titles. ‘I don’t want to be embarrassed,’ she said.
Elise Loehnen tried to mediate, but the real resistance seemed to be coming from Gwyneth. As recalled by one person who was involved, her attitude was: ‘They don’t get it. We have to do this to help women. This is the patriarchy. Medical funding sponsors research that helps men.’
The first issue of Goop in print somehow came together, opening with a guide to the healing power of crystals, in which Gwyneth was a true believer.
‘To rid rooms of negative energy and keep energy vampires out of your life, call on amethyst,’ it read. ‘The stone is also used to help with addictions to things as varied as alcohol, shopping and negative self-talk.’
But the magazine partnership dissolved after the second issue. ‘I think we had a natural coming apart,’ recalled Sauerberg.
‘I don’t know that they fully appreciated the thoroughness that we went through in journalism and the kind of rules we had with photoshoots and the way we did certain things. I think they thought we were perhaps a little old-school.’
A Goop source maintained that the partnership fell apart because Conde couldn’t sell ads, which was true – demand from advertisers was low.
Gwyneth quickly lost interest in the magazine. Goop published two more issues on their own, then moved on.
In September 2024 Goop announced that it would cut 18 per cent of its 216-person staff – or 40 people – and focus only on beauty, fashion and food. The money-losing parts of the business Gwyneth loved in the 2010s, like travel and wellness, would be deprioritised. In November, Goop underwent a second round of layoffs.
Gwyneth is seen with Timothee Chalamet on the Marty Supreme movie set in 2024
In an interview in March this year for Vanity Fair, Gwyneth seemed to be trying to take control of the narrative about Goop’s apparent decline.
‘I. Don’t. Care,’ she insisted to writer Michelle Ruiz, regarding the stories. ‘My business is a good business and it’s a strong business and the brand is strong.’
Despite having said she would ‘literally never’ return to acting, news broke in September 2024 of Gwyneth’s casting in Marty Supreme, a movie inspired by table tennis player Marty Reisman, with Gwyneth starring opposite 23-years-younger Timothee Chalamet.
When photos of Chalamet kissing Gwyneth during a scene came out in the autumn of 2024 they were a useful distraction from stories about Goop’s layoffs. While the work led her to fall back in love with acting, said someone familiar with her thinking, she also knew the added visibility would only boost Goop’s sales.
So what will the future bring? Whatever happens with Goop, Gwyneth will be fine. She has a way of emerging victorious from any calamity.
She has convinced the public at every turn to buy whatever she’s selling. But the victory she’s experienced at every stage of her life isn’t something that she can sell… or that money can buy.
Adapted from Gwyneth by Amy Odell (Atlantic Books, £20), to be published July 31. © Amy Odell 2025. To order a copy for £18 (offer valid to 09/08/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937
