High Priestess OF hokum
Her New Age tips — from jade eggs to frog venom and bee stings — are universally ridiculed. But is Gwynnie’s website Goop now peddling high-risk remedies too?
Gwyneth Paltrow is the gift that just keeps on giving. on screen, she plays highly-strung, beautiful blondes to a tee. off screen, she is the brains behind Goop, the much-ridiculed lifestyle empire that has seen her anointed the high priestess of new age lunacy and the ‘wellness’ movement. who can forget her promotion of jade rocks — or ‘vagina eggs’ as they are known — that women insert to strengthen pelvic floor muscles and heighten sexual pleasure?
or the ‘brain dust’ you sprinkle in your fruit juice to ‘align you with the mighty cosmic flow’. or collagen martinis to boost skin tone. last weekend, Goop — which started as a website in 2008 and is becoming a multi-million dollar operation — held its first ‘summit’ in los angeles, where 500 lucky attendees, some paying as much as £1,200 a ticket, got to see their priestess in the flesh.
For the rest of us, the priceless ‘secrets’ imparted by Paltrow & Co — a starry group of fellow healthconscious celebs — has generated mocking headlines this past week.
australian supermodel Miranda Kerr explained how she sticks leeches on her face to keep her skin deep- cleansed, while fellow ‘wellness seekers’, actress Cameron Diaz (a meditation fan), and tV reality star nicole ritchie (who once lived on sunflower seeds), shared their wisdom.
there was a photographer on hand with a special camera that reveals ‘auras’, while the benefits of frog venom to treat burns, bad luck and cancer were debated.
there were earnest discussions about ‘the nourishing approach to orgasm’ and Paltrow — who used the occasion to announce she was recovering from ‘perfectionism’ — interviewed two of her favourite shrinks about the Field, an ‘invisible force that makes things happen that you can’t do on your own’.
It’s impossible not to smirk. But there is a deeply alarming side to Goop, say a growing chorus of doctors and scientists.
The endless stream of advice and over-priced products championed by the website isn’t just silly. In many cases, they say, it can also be dangerous, either directly causing harm or by dissuading people from getting proper medical advice for what could be serious health issues.
Dr Jen Gunter, gynaecologist and Goop debunker, calls it ‘a megaphone for pseudo-science’.
‘It’s pushing ‘‘therapies’’ invented [long] before the microscope,’ she adds, noting everyone on Goop ‘seems to be selling something’.
timothy Caulfield, professor of health policy at the University of alberta, warns that Paltrow is ‘keeping myths alive, fearmongering and creating confusion. Celebrities play a big role in circulating this dangerous nonsense.’
and particularly a global celebrity like Paltrow, the 44-year- old mother-of-two with an oscar and perfect skin — living proof, surely, that she holds the secret to health, wealth and happiness.
‘Goop’s really about looking good — which is also problematic,’ adds Prof Caulfield. Paltrow says she’s on a mission to share ‘when I find something I think works’ and even her most vociferous critics accept she believes in what she preaches.
or they did — until a disastrous appearance on a U.S. chat show last week in which it was clear she knew even less about what’s on her website than her interviewer. as he listed some of Goop’s more outrageous ideas, she just giggled and couldn’t elaborate on them. ‘I don’t know what the f*** we talk about,’ she admitted.
her frank outburst, says Prof Caulfield, ‘proves it isn’t a passion project for her, it’s just a business.’ Goop hasn’t commented on criticisms. Instead, it points to a disclaimer below every article that states its intent to ‘ highlight alternative studies and induce conversation’ and that it is ‘not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment’.
It’s unclear how much Goop is worth, but it says it doubled its revenue from 2015 to 2016, and its online vitamin business sold $100,000 worth of supplements within the first 24 hours of its launch in March. It is also expanding, launching dietary supplements and, up next, a magazine.
Paltrow insists that what some say is crazy now will, in five years, be widely accepted. But a trawl through Goop’s most contentious offerings suggests she may have to wait a lot longer than five years for science to catch up with her, as we reveal here...