A failed posh mag deal, sex toys slammed and claims crystals cure illness banned

AS wellness guru Gwyneth Paltrow gets busy at the stove steaming clams for dinner, her ex-husband Chris Martin saunters into the kitchen and sits down on a stool.

The former Hollywood star doesn’t bat an eyelid, explaining the Coldplay frontman is there for their kids’ music practice.

Moments later her fiance — director Brad Falchuk, 47 — comes in, wraps his arms around her waist and lovingly snuggles against her.
It is a peculiar set-up to say the least, but what else would we expect from the woman who coined the phrase “conscious uncoupling”?

Like everything in Gwyneth’s life, her amicable split from Chris seems too good to be true. And in a new interview with the New York Times, she hints that perhaps it is.

She reveals: “I was really saying we’re in a lot of pain, we failed at this — we’re going to try and do it in a different way.”

When she and Chris announced their divorce in 2014, with a much-derided statement declaring they were “closer than we have ever been”, they were widely mocked.
Gwyneth, 45, was just as baffled about the backlash, saying: “I was so raw that I didn’t anticipate [it]. I think that was an instance where it really hit me that an insouciance with language from me is different from somebody else.”

Her 12-year-old son Moses and daughter Apple, 14, wander into the pristine kitchen. They politely shake the interviewer’s hand and introduce themselves. Apple plays guitar with no pick (she likes the calluses) and Moses likes to rock out.

Gwyneth says of him, proudly: “He’s going to play AC/DC. He keeps such good time."

Despite her seemingly idyllic life, the mum-of-two seems to be constantly under fire.
In 2013 Star Magazine named her the Most Hated Celebrity in Hollywood. She says: “I remember being like, ‘Really? More than, like, Chris Brown? Me? Really?’ Wow.
“It was also the same week that I was People’s Most Beautiful Woman.

“For a minute I was like, ‘Wait, I don’t understand. Am I hated to the bone or the world’s most beautiful?’”It seems unkind people want to knock her golden girl image and portray her halo as tarnished.

Lately, she has faced flak for her megabucks lifestyle empire, Goop.

A partnership with magazine publisher Conde Nast fell apart after it wanted to fact-check articles.

With legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour as artistic director, the plan was to create a regular Goop magazine. But Gwyneth wanted to publish interviews with non- traditional healers and practitioners, as they do on the Goop website.

Naturally, their claims can be scientifically difficult to stand up.

Gwyneth says: “They’re a company that’s really in transition and do things in a very old-school way. But it was amazing to work with Anna. I love her. She’s a total idol of mine. We realised we could just do a better job of it ourselves in-house.

“For us it was really like we like to work where we are in an expansive space. Somewhere like Conde, understandably, there are a lot of rules.”

Goop is littered with alternative therapies. As well as doling out life advice it sells products which have included “psychic vampire repellent” to “shield you from negative energy” and £11,000 vibrators.

So far, so harmless. But in March a 55-year-old Spanish woman died after trying Goop-endorsed bee-sting therapy, and numerous gynaecologists have warned against the use of site favourites such as vaginal jade eggs and steaming. The egg-shaped device, which is inserted into the vagina, is supposed to “cultivate sexual energy . . . intensify femininity, and invigorate our life force”.

Then there is the Mugwort V-Steam to cleanse the intimate area.

Gwyneth once enthused about it: “The real golden ticket here is the Mugwort V-Steam.“You sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus, et al.”
Controversially, Goop once warned against using condoms which contain dairy products and said to go for vegan-friendly ones instead.

Maggie Ney, a “naturopathic doctor”, told Gwyneth: “Ideally, you want to find a vegan, paraben-free, glycerin-free, Nonoxynol-9-free, and benzocaine and lidocaine-free condom.”

Gynaecologist Dr Jen Gunter has written 30 blog posts since 2015 debunking such Goop advice.

She wrote: “Tampons are not vaginal death sticks, vegetables with lectins are not killing us, vaginas don’t need steaming, Epstein Barr virus does not cause every thyroid disease and, for f***’s sake, no one needs to know their latex farmer.“They need to know that the only thing between them and HIV or gonorrhea is a few millimeters of latex, so glove that s**t up.”

In 2016 Goop agreed to stop advertising claims made for Moon Juice, Brain Dust and Sex Dust food supplements after a complaint to a US business group.

The group stated that “an advertiser has an obligation to ensure the claims it makes for the product are truthful, accurate and not misleading”.
Moon Juice had been a recipe ingredient in the GP Morning Smoothie. Goop declared: “Gwyneth drinks one of these every morning, whether or not she’s detoxing.

“Choose your Moon Juice dust depending on what the day ahead holds . . . brain dust before a long day at the office, sex dust before a date.”

And last year the watchdog Truth In Advertising (TINA) warned Goop to stop making “unsubstantiated” and “deceptive” advertising claims for some of the products it sells.

TINA’s Bonnie Patten said: “Our concern is that Goop is using disease treatment claims to market products it has no reliable scientific evidence to prove they can do the things they are saying.
“They’re making claims that crystals can treat infertility or soap can treat acne, eczema and psoriasis. They have perfumes they claim have ingredients that heal diseased lungs and improve memory. You name it, they’ve got something for you.”

Despite the criticism, Goop is worth £190million and each time eyes are rolled at something on the site, the number of hits goes up.

During a talk at top American university Harvard, Gwyneth told the students: “I can monetise those eyeballs. It’s a cultural firestorm when it’s about a woman’s vagina.”
As the room sat silent she yelled: “VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!”

After perhaps a few too many “cultural firestorms”, Goop has now hired a lawyer to vet claims and in September will get a fact checker.

As Goop grew, Gwyneth, who won an Oscar for the 1999 film Shakespeare In Love, quit acting. Early on in her career, one of her closest working relationships was with shamed movie producer Harvey Weinstein, who propositioned her when she was 22 during talks about the film Emma. She told then-boyfriend Brad Pitt Weinstein had tried to sexually harass her and asked for a massage. Brad rode to her rescue.

She said: “It was like the equivalent of throwing him against the wall, energetically . . . He leveraged his fame and power to protect me. He said, ‘If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I’ll kill you’, or something like that.”

Since last October, more than 85 women have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment, abuse or rape.

Back in Gwyneth’s elegant Hollywood townhouse, harmony reigns as Apple strums The Beatles’ Blackbird. The only regret in her perfect life is not having had a third child. She says: “I really wanted another one.”
Clearly even the woman who has everything is left wanting more.