WALDEN’S WORLD
The Gwyneth I’ve met gets lost in translation
The “conscious recoupling” headlines were predictable when Gwyneth Paltrow tied the knot with her boyfriend of two years, Brad Falchuk, on Saturday. So were the sneers.
The mutually manicured hands and wedding bands on Instagram the following day were deemed “gross” and “gag-worthy” – as was their statement about the hope that their “collective successes and failures can serve as building blocks for a healthy and happy relationship”.
And while I get that Gwyneth’s sneer-tastic public persona is now cast in stone, thanks to a series of absurdly one percentile quotes on everything from the problem with Parisian concierges not knowing the answer to “where do I get a bikini wax?” to the elevating powers of flowering zucchini, and interviews where the Goop founder passes off her butler as her “house manager”, I do think she is one of those public figures who gets lost in media translation. I’ve met her twice and on both times I’ve been surprised to find her not only funny – in a kind of goofy way that doesn’t work on the page – but also resigned to the fact that there’s not much she can do to change her image. As her haters have helped to make Goop worth around £190million, I can understand why she’s not going to waste time caring.