You have to admit, way back in the 1990s Gwyneth Paltrow had a fresh-faced earnestness that really was sort of alluring. (I used to do a Clueless/Emma sleepover double-feature, and Gwyneth Paltrow is cute as a bug. No kidding!)
So I cannot imagine anyone cheating on poor Gwyneth, least of all when she was in the prime of her rosy-cheeked youth. In the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar Paltrow names no names, but she does allude to a certain boyfriend who caused her strife:
“I had a boyfriend who used to cheat on me all the time,” says the Oscar winner, 39, who dated Brad Pitt from 1994 to 1997, and Ben Affleck from 1997 to 2000. (She tells the mag she was “not happy” in her 20s, when she first became a star and dated Pitt, 48, and Affleck, 39.)
“I was quite naive,” she says of being cheated on by her unnamed guy. “I knew on a cellular level, but I bought his story.”
Although she points out that she and Martin, 34, have been faithful, she says (as she has in the past), “I have friends who I love and admire who have had an affair. When I was younger, I would have said he’s a terrible person or she’s a terrible person. But who made these laws?”
Ugh. That is just plumb awful.
Worse, there are only so many people Paltrow’s lyin’, cheatin’ boyfriend could have been. And the top contenders are Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. Yeesh. I consider myself a gambling woman, but I am not even touching this one.
Judging only from the slim soundbytes we have, it’s easy to see that whatever happened still haunts Paltrow a little bit. But I appreciate how adult she is being about old pain, how much she has matured.
Because it’s true! Sometimes decent people cheat. I’m not “for” it or anything—I have a pretty plain black-and-white sense of morality, usually—but there are some things that people do, and with age you find yourself letting some of that go.
Sure, I roll my eyes at Gwyneth a little, but she sounds like a good egg.
Gwyneth suffers from a classic victim personality disorder as of late. I think it started right around the time she gave birth to her first kid and realized she was in a healthy relationship and happy for the first time ever. But she fails to look back on life and accept her share of responsibility most of the time. She will graze over the possibility of taking a few sugar sprinkles of responsibility but she mostly shoves the cake in other peoples faces in her magazine interviews. It is very tasteless. Not to mention her condescending website where she makes herself look like a pathetic coat-tails chaser.
Scout: very realistic comments. She could be a high maintenance pain in the ass to a guy’s point of view, but thinks she’s being realistic about her wants and needs.
Granted, if a guy is going to cheat on her, he’d be better to just dump her rather than continue to date her and keep cheating. If he doesn’t, the guy is a jerk himself.
Gwyneth Paltrow seems like a good egg? She seems totally self absorbed and insufferable to me.
I just don’t get it…her parents bought her whatever success she has (including that incredibly undeserved Oscar) and (this is what actually annoys me…) She isn’t even pretty. I could almost live with the Gwyneth worshippers if she was even slightly more attractive than 99.99% of the population. Too weird!
Oh, the Shakespeare in Love Oscar *does* annoy me. She was kind of cute before that, though.
Is the Gwyneth Oscar worse than the Reese Witherspoon or Julia Roberts Oscars? I dunno. I dunno. It’s all about campaigning!
I remember when Reese made interesting movies. Sigh.