LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE Marc Jacobs sweater, $595, marcjacobs.com, Jacquemus swim brief, $125, jacquemus.com PHOTO: LACHLAN BAILEY FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE, STYLING BY GEORGE CORTINA
Wellness is now a $4.2 trillion business, according to a 2018 report by the Global Wellness Institute. Goop’s valuation hit $250 million this year. Though its revenues represent a fraction of the industry, for many it serves as an unofficial portal to all things wellness, with Paltrow in the role of patron saint—and lightning rod. The inverse of wellness is, of course, illness. The movement is built on a combustible combination: the fear of death, a growing distrust of Big Pharma and a dose of transcendentalism, that thoroughly American blend of self-actualization, spiritual freedom and love of the natural world that dates back to the 1800s of Emerson and Thoreau. When Goop devotees read about “rocking your intuitive crown” and performing meditation “cleanses” that the site dubs “spiritual botox,” they are closer to the ethos of Thoreau’s Walden Pond than they might think.
Around the same era, in England and America, snake oil became a widespread cure for common ailments. While traditional Chinese snake oil contains eicosapentaenoic acid, an anti-inflammatory and analgesic, versions sold in the Western world were often overpriced placebos. It wasn’t until the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that such nostrums—sold as medications—were banned, setting the stage for the modern-day Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA does not test and approve cosmetics in the $135 billion skin-care or vitamins in the $96 billion dietary supplement industries. As with most vitamins, comparable products from Goop come with a caveat: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Goop says it also tests its own products from formulation to production. This fall, the company introduced Goopgenes; G. Day, a collection of body-care products formulated to “increase energy”; and Madame Ovary, a combo of herbs, adaptogens, nutrients and vitamins tailored for women in menopause, available for $90 per box or $75 as a monthly subscription.
Paltrow draws ire for her support of outlier medical opinions, but also for her products’ prices. The Goop by Juice Beauty Revitalizing Day Moisturizer is $100, on par with Tata Harper’s $110 Repairative Moisturizer, a similarly “clean” product, though it costs far less than luxury creams like La Mer’s, at $325. Clothing ranges from $200 to $1200, comparable to what the fashion industry calls “contemporary,” a tier below luxury fashion. (Witherspoon’s Draper James brand, by comparison, sells dresses in the $150 range.) The recent collaboration with CB2 includes $9.95 glasses and $16.95 plates, but on an Instagram ad for $125 Goop Exfoliating Instant Facial, comments include, “How much is it, $9,081 per ounce?”, “Go away, Gwyneth Paltrow,” and “Is there a way to ‘de-Goopify’ my feed?”
Paltrow has spent some time thinking about this. “It’s like the week that I was People’s most beautiful woman and Star’s most hated celebrity,” in 2013, she says. “It’s a lesson that I learned when we did the ‘conscious uncoupling’ thing.” The term went viral, and the reaction was “so vitriolic,” she says. “I was so raw. It was so hard to be getting a divorce and letting go of this dream, and the public stuff was super painful. I wanted to see if we could check our pain and egos at the door and remember what we love about each other and be a family for these kids. What I didn’t understand at the time was, I think there’s a message in that, which is, ‘If you don’t do it this way, you’re hurting your kids.’
“I think people take that as: ‘She thinks she is better than me,’ ” Paltrow says. She imagines everyone thinking: “Wait till she gets into it. It’s going to be hell.”
So far, Paltrow seems to have avoided hell. On the day of our interview, her son, Moses, and a friend ride ATVs up and down the property past Paltrow’s on-site yoga studio, pausing for a snack. “Oh, my gosh,” Paltrow says, bursting out in laughter. “They have my chief of staff—who has a degree from Harvard Business School—delivering them ice cream!” Martin later shows up to join Paltrow and the kids for dinner. In California, whenever Martin is not touring he picks up the kids from the school bus and takes them to Paltrow’s house in Brentwood. Paltrow handles morning drop-off, hits a class at the Paltrow-backed gym Tracy Anderson and then heads to the Goop offices. She leaves work at 5 p.m. to get home for dinner. When she is traveling, Martin sleeps at Paltrow’s house, where he has a room.
Thus far, she and Falchuk, who also has two teenage children, haven’t merged households and are taking it slow, even post-marriage. “We are still doing it in our own way. With teenage kids, you’ve got to tread lightly. It’s pretty intense, the teenage thing,” she says. “I’ve never been a stepmother before. I don’t know how to do it.” The pair met when Paltrow guest-starred on the Fox TV series Glee, which Falchuk co-created with producer Ryan Murphy. He and Murphy also created the upcoming Netflix series The Politician—in which Falchuk convinced Paltrow to take a supporting role. (Falchuk has an inside track, says Paltrow: “He said, ‘I wrote it for you and I know you don’t really want to do it and you probably can’t do it, but I would love you to read it.’ And he’s such a great writer.”) Her CEO responsibilities at Goop have left little room for acting, though Paltrow will reprise her recurring role as Pepper Potts in the next installment of the Avengers franchise.
The couple squeezed in their wedding between September back-to-school and the launch party for Goop’s London pop-up. In front of a small group of guests at Paltrow’s Amagansett home, she wore a Valentino gown. Stern, her yoga guru, officiated. On a phone call five weeks later, she says she is thrilled with married life: “It’s fantastic. I feel like we are probably better equipped to choose our life partner when we are halfway through life. But generally we have to pick our spouses a lot earlier because of the whole procreation piece.... For me it has been more of a process, and so I feel really lucky to have met this person who is an incredible, true partner.”
Stock vintage sweater, $185, Stock Vintage, 143 East 13th Street, New York, Flagpole swim brief, $185, flagpolenyc.com. Set design, Heath Mattioli; hair, Lorenzo Martin; makeup, Mark Carrasquillo; manicure, Miwa Kobayashi. PHOTO: LACHLAN BAILEY FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE, STYLING BY GEORGE CORTINA
The newlyweds spent a couple of days honeymooning in Tuscany and Paris before she continued on to London alone. Falchuk serves as a sounding board—though “not if I need to talk about Ebitda,” she says, laughing at her CEO-speak for the measure of company profitability. He has appeared on the cover of her magazine as well as in the pages of her next cookbook, The Clean Plate, out in January. (Paltrow’s books sell well enough that Goop now has its own imprint at Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group.) “I bit off a lot—I’m trying to chew through it every day,” she says.
Paltrow has a tight circle she reaches out to for advice, including a business coach, Albert Lee, whom she speaks to regularly, and uses tricks like turning off her phone in meetings to focus. Her “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” mentor is Disney ’s Bob Iger. Getting to Oprah is no problem, but there is one person she can’t reach: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “I’ve emailed him,” she says. “He won’t email back.” (A spokesperson for Bezos declined to comment.)
Paltrow has been experimenting with pulling away from some aspects of the business, such as G. Label clothing, which she models less often these days, or fronting the Goop podcast. She still test-drives nearly every product sold, and a recent board meeting was held at her Amagansett home. Finding a balance is a struggle. “How can the brand stand on its own two feet so that it’s genuinely scalable and I’m a good asset?” she asks herself. Her goal, she says, is to have what she calls a global “heritage” lifestyle brand.
“Part of me thinks it’s good for Goop that I also am still Gwyneth Paltrow, you know?” she says. She’s a spokesmodel for the beauty products, since, as she points out, she has been hired to do the same for other brands. “Over time, it would be great if somebody else could do that, especially since, you know, I’m not like a 20-year-old.”
In the meantime, she is trying to enjoy the ride. “In one way you think, Oh, my God. I hit the freaking jackpot. I won the lottery. I get to be this person, and that served as a platform for me to start my business and to have all this incredible access to amazing people and artists and designers, and I’ve had such a fascinating life,” she says. “And then on the other hand, you get old and a little grumpy and you just want to kind of be a hermit.”
But Paltrow is not one to take her foot off the gas. “I’m here one f—ing time. I want an incredible life,” she says. “I used to be in my trailer, smoking a cigarette and waiting for Ethan Hawke to open the door. Now look at me.” •