Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Gwyneth Paltrow on Nutrition, Lipstick Lesbians, and The Family Bath

A photo of Gwyneth Paltrow

Yesterday, Jenn brought you guys a quote that Gwyneth Paltrow gave about cheating and cheating cheaters in Harper’s Bazaar, and today, I’m bringing you some additional quotes from the interview. You’re pumped, aren’t you? I can tell! You should be especially pumped if you’re one of those people who love to hate Gwyneth Paltrow, because she really gives a bit of ammunition in this here interview.

From Harper’s Bazaar:

On looking good and working out: “I’ll take my wrinkles,” she says. “I don’t like the Botox thing.” But she does enjoy sunshine for the vitamin D, despite “my dermatologist yelling at me.” (She admits to “little things, like lasers” and regular facials, often with the London-based Vaishaly Patel.) Today, like every other weekday morning, she has spent an hour and a half with her trainer, Tracy Anderson, doing dance aerobics and a precise series of exercises that changes every 10 days. The aim, she says, is “that you’re muscular, but you don’t get used to anything.”

On nutrition: “I have a lot of inflammation in my system, so I’m not having anything I’m allergic to—no gluten, no dairy, no sugar.” The trigger for these seasonal detox sessions, she says, is recognizing her physical symptoms: “I’ll wake up exhausted; I can feel my adrenal cortex being really high. When I get into bed, my heart will pound, my skin won’t be good, I’ll feel cranky, and then I’ll just know it’s time.”

On eating: “I eat whatever I want. I like bread and cheese and wine, and that makes my life fun and enjoyable.” But an outline of her regular diet, along with the rest of her timetable, reveals a model of restraint. She’s up every morning around 7:00 with her two children, Apple and Moses (seven and five, respectively). “I don’t really like eating that early, so I usually just have coffee and then a couple of bites of their leftovers, like granola and yogurt or scrambled eggs.”

On the family: Her husband, Chris Martin, is hugely supportive of Goop. Today he is covering for Gwyneth with the kids in between duties as lead singer of Coldplay and planning a world tour to promote the band’s latest album. The two of them seem affectionately relaxed together—”he’s very communicative,” she says, “which is rare for a British man”—at ease with their nine-year relationship and their roles as parents. “If I’m in L.A. for three days working, then my husband does the school run; it’s always one of us,” although they do have a nanny for the children. “She’s French, so she’s teaching them French, and their previous nanny was Spanish, so they’re fluent in Spanish.” But it’s Gwyneth who gives the children their bath—”we all get into the tub together”—and she’s the one who cooks dinner for them before Apple and Moses go to bed at 8:00.

On her daughter’s fashion sense: Nowadays she sees her dresses through the eyes of Apple, for whom she is archiving her wardrobe. “I’ve been saving my clothes for her since before she was born. I was like, I’ll bet you anything I’ll have a daughter, and she’ll be a really cool butch lesbian and be so above clothes, and I got a very clothes-obsessed child. So if she’s a lesbian, she’s a lipstick lesbian. She doesn’t like anything avant-garde at all. She likes anything that’s pretty, pretty, pretty or has a bow or a ruffle or is pink.”

On being an anti-feminist: “I have little kids in school. I want to maintain my marriage and my family, so I have to be here when he comes home.” Hence her recent advice to a girlfriend (who remains tantalizingly unnamed): “She is an actress and in a new relationship with someone else with a big career, and I said this may not be feminist, but you have to compromise. It’s been all about you and you’re a big deal. And if you want what you’re saying you want—a family—you have to be a wife, and that is part of the equation. Gloria Steinem may string me up by my toes, but all I can do is my best, and I can do only what works for me and my family.”

Ok, to be fair (which is so hard when it comes to this woman), Gwyneth didn’t really say anything too terrible, right? Even though she said that “Gloria Steinem may string me up by my toes,” I don’t think what she said is that bad at all. The family bath bit is weird, but not insanely so – I took showers with my mom when I was little, like three or so, and I always took baths with my female cousins. I know tons of moms who bathe with their children to save time or because the kid wants to, but none of those moms have kids who are seven or five. Really, I just wish she would shut the hell up about eating and food and nutrition and ugh. Nobody cares about your adrenal cortex, Gwyn. Trust.

3 CommentsLeave a comment

  • all feminism used to mean was that women are equal to men. you can be a feminist and be a stay at home wife. compromising with a man does not make you anti-feminist. i think its really sad when people only associate feminism with bra-burning and man hating. that really isnt that case at all. there are extremists in any “group”.

    • Thank you, Kathy! I was thinking the same thing!
      GP either doesn’t know what feminism means, or I dunno. There is nothing anti-feminist about being a mother and a wife—I mean, she has/had a bigger career and previous “independence” than her husband. Not that that makes one a feminist either, but, Jesus, yeah, what you said!

  • A. I agree with Kathy, and find Gwyneth’s statement on feminism pretty offensive, personally.

    B. In the first question she stated that she avoids dairy, then proclaimed a love of cheese? I think she just likes to sound really knowledgeable and healthy re: her diet, but she’s seemed pretty inconsistent in the past. Ugh.