Gwyneth Paltrow is CEO of Goop, the ever-expanding lifestyle and wellness juggernaut that she founded, and she’s also a working actress. The means that while she’s dispensing wellness advice, she’s also putting herself up on screen—a living, breathing example of how well that advice is working.
“I mean there’s nothing like high def TV to make you rethink your lack of, you know, Botox,” she told Jenna Lyons, former president and executive creative director of J.Crew Group in a wide-ranging conversation during Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit on Tuesday. In addition to the variety of Marvel movies you can watch her in for the price of an iTunes rental, she’s in The Politician, the Netflix original created by Ryan Murphy and Paltrow’s husband Brad Falchuk (who got her to commit to the role, she said dryly, because, “He’s really good in bed.”)
How does she feel about plastic surgery and the like from, you know, a wellness perspective? “We’re living in a time where there are all these amazing things that are available to women who are aging and I’m just not sure how I feel about it yet. I’ve tried like little things here and there but I haven’t felt comfortable really pursuing it.”
But don’t hold her to it. Faces and minds can always change. “I reserve the right to do it or have a facelift or whatever at some point; I’m not saying I wouldn’t but I think there is a part of me that feels conflicted on some level about it,” she said. “Sometimes I see these those gorgeous, old French movie stars and they just are, and it’s just very sensual in a way. It’s extremely empowering to just be yourself and not lose your sensuality and your, your femininity, but we’ll see. I’m not making any promises.”
Paltrow, who has been the CEO of Goop since 2017, took Lyons back to the company’s beginning in 2008. “I thought obviously I have no authority to do anything like this and no one’s going to take me seriously,” she said. “I have learned so much. And so much by making such grave mistakes that have cost millions of dollars.”
She didn’t elaborate on specific mistakes, but did share that whenever the content on Goop got negative press, it eventually become a boon for the company. “In many cases, it really benefits us because like we rank number one or two in SEO for a number of these topics that are now really super popular. Like, you know, detox and celery juice for example.”
“I mean, I wrote a gluten free cookbook like eight years ago and people wrote that Child Services should be called on me because I was starving my children,” she added. “That was a good one. And you know, now gluten free is mainstream.”
Her decision to take a more hands-on role at the company she founded coincided with a major shift in the culture. 2017 was also the year that Ronan Farrow at the New Yorker and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey at the New York Times published their watershed exposés on Harvey Weinstein (Weinstein has denied all accusations of nonconsensual sex). Paltrow was one of the first women who had worked with Weinstein to come forward about his alleged behavior.
Kantor and Twohey credit Paltrow for helping to tip the scales two years ago and encourage more women to go on record about their experiences wih Weinstein. Prior to the release of their book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, last month, the co-authors said that Weinstein had showed up at a party at Paltrow’s home early in the reporting. (Weinstein said in response to the book, “‘She Says’ is all you need to know to appreciate that this book contains one sided allegations without having adequately investigated the facts of each situation. There is very different side to every story.”)