The newly released Gwyneth Paltrow offers some insight on Goop’s success over the years — while also sharing details about what goes on behind closed doors.
Author Amy Odell writes in Gwyneth: The Biography that Paltrow, 52, once apparently “found pee on a toilet seat at the office” and it was addressed in a public Slack channel. “Someone tinkled,” Paltrow allegedly wrote to employees. “Make sure to clean up after yourselves, I’d appreciate it.”
The book alleged that Paltrow was sometimes “cold” with her employees as well. Those who “worked up the nerve to go into her office” allegedly experienced “impatience” and “attitude.” Odell claimed, “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.”
The “dynamic was subtle but damaging” with in the office. “Almost no one — Goop’s board included — was willing to tell her no,” Odell claimed.
Paltrow launched the wellness company in September 2008 “when her dad came down with throat cancer.” The actress “was trying to figure out what caused it and she went down a rabbit hole of what we know today as ‘big wellness,’ an industry that demonizes things like toxins and chemicals present in everyday items that we can’t escape,” Odell wrote.
“I think that kind of indoctrinated her to this industry,” the author claimed in an excerpt published by People ahead of the book’s release. From that point on, Goop has had an upward trajectory — with some misses along the way. (Us Weekly has reached out to Goop for comment.)
Odell wrote that “the early days of Goop were fun,” noting that the brand was “an odd window into her world and what it was like to have that money, that privilege and that lifestyle.” Odell explained that Paltrow “made wellness a luxury commodity.”
Odell mused that fans of Paltrow “have to understand that the wellness industry is trying to sell us things,” and Goop is part of that.
“I think part of the appeal of Goop’s wellness products and content was — I’ll get one step closer to Gwyneth’s beautiful life,” she wrote. “But you can’t buy Gwyneth’s life. You can’t buy that privilege.”
The brand has experienced its fair share of controversies. According to Odell, “Goop’s board nor its investors were concerned” — neither was Paltrow.
“This is what drove her to do the business. She thought, I’m going to research things, recommend things, and if you want to go traditional, go see your GP. That’s not what I’m going to do. I’m not going to tell you to get a checkup,” a former Goop executive told Odell in the book.
While Goop was initially a weekly newsletter, the brand has since grown into a complete e-commerce business that’s worth an estimated $250 million.
“I very much want Goop to be its own stand-alone brand,” Paltrow said during a 2011 interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “I know that, at this point in time, it’s inextricably linked with me, but we really are a team of amazing people who bring incredible ideas to the site. It’s not only me.”
While Goop has since become a notable name — no matter if you’re a critic or fan — there was a time when Paltrow almost put an end to it completely.
“There were a couple of times when I thought, ‘I’m just gonna stop doing it. People are so mean to me. I don’t want to do it,’” she shared during the same interview. “But then I was like, ‘Who cares what some lame person out there says?’ I was in Italy once, and this old man came up to me and said, ‘I had the best time in Nashville because of Goop.’ And that is so worth it to me.”
Gwyneth: The Biography is out now.
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