Gwyneth Paltrow is not holding back when it comes to her thoughts on the recent unauthorized biography about her life. In a candid interview with British Vogue, the Oscar-winning actress didn’t mince words, calling author Amy Odell a “hack” and dismissing the book as “rubbish.”
The biography in question, titled Gwyneth: The Biography, hit shelves back in July and quickly made headlines. However, Paltrow herself never actually read it. Instead, her husband Brad Falchuk took one for the team and flipped through the pages. His verdict? Pretty brutal.
“He said, ‘It’s as if somebody put in a prompt in ChatGPT and said: mine every Daily Mail article and write a biography about Gwyneth Paltrow,'” the actress revealed. Talk about a burn. Falchuk apparently told her it was “just bad” and “really badly written,” which seems to have been enough for Paltrow to form her opinion without cracking it open herself.
What really got under the Goop founder’s skin, though, was the double standard she sees in the celebrity biography world. “It’s very sexist. I was like, ‘Ok, hang on a sec. Why do the men get Walter Isaacson and I get this hack?’ You know?” she quipped, referring to the acclaimed biographer who’s penned books about Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Albert Einstein.
Coming from a talented Hollywood family that includes her brother Jake Paltrow, a respected director and screenwriter, Gwyneth knows a thing or two about storytelling. Maybe that’s why she’s so critical of how her own story was told.
The actress added that Odell “totally missed everything, the truth of who I am, what my impact is.” She was particularly bothered by anonymous sources in the biography claiming her wellness company Goop had a “toxic culture.”
“That bothers me. ‘Oh, Goop has a toxic culture.’ That drives me insane because we have never had that,” Paltrow insisted, though she did acknowledge they’ve had a couple of toxic employees over the years.
The biography drew from more than 200 interviews with people who know or have worked with Paltrow, but without the actress’s participation, it seems the final product missed the mark in her eyes. Whether you love her or find her polarizing, one thing’s clear: Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t afraid to speak her mind about how her story gets told.
