Lost in showbizGwyneth PaltrowThe Goop curator tried to raise the world’s palate with macrobiotic kale. But has Gwynnie now finally met her nemesis?
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There are weeks when nothing much seems to happen in the world of celebrity. They go quietly about their business, no different from you or me. And then there are weeks when the star-filled firmament shines so dazzlingly bright, it can only be safely looked at through smoked glass. Friends, this is such a week. The week of the Kardashians’ Mission to Armenia! Not everyone could make it – no sign, alas, of Kendall, Kylie, Kris or Kourtney – but Kim, Khloe and two of their cousins, Kelloggs and Kraftwerk, had a high-powered meeting with the country’s prime minster, Hovik Abrahamyan, and what appears to be his cabinet. Who knows of what they spoke? The refusal of the United Nations to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as a republic? The WikiLeaked documents that suggested the US embassy viewed Abrahamyan as a “thug” who engaged in “dirty-money politics”? Bronzer v contouring? We can but gaze on in awe, and wonder.
Even so, Lost in Showbiz’s gaze turned from Eurasia to Los Angeles, its heart rent by the bad week suffered by its old friend Gwyneth Paltrow. Its heart leapt when it saw the curator of Goop was taking part in a challenge to live off a weekly food budget of $29 – what 1.7 million New Yorkers are expected to survive on in the form of food stamps – and leapt higher still when it saw what she had spent it on: coriander, lettuce, brown rice, kale, seven limes etc. Here was a food basket of hope, a basket that embodied the Goop philosophy, a basket that said, loud and proud: even America’s poor can enjoy the kind of joyless, buttock-clenching, is-this-kombucha-locally-sourced? diet a body-image obsessed Hollywood actor might suffer, in order to look good in a Stella McCartney crêpe de chine statement-piece skirt ($1,960 on Goop’s webstore). But did people take that beautiful egalitarian message on board? Oh no: it was “poverty tourism” this, “unrealistic” that, “what the hell have you bought seven limes for?” the other.
And then: more trouble, in the shape of Paltrow’s nemesis Blake Lively, proprietor of Goop’s upstart rival in the world of websites flogging insufferably marketed, overpriced cobblers, Preserve. Up she popped, informing the world that she rubs her nipples with truffles before breastfeeding her daughter: “You’ve got to give her a very balanced palate from a young age so she doesn’t only eat beige food.” She later suggested she had been making a joke. “#whoputstrufflesontheirnipplesDearGod,” she wrote on Instagram, which rather invited the answer: I dunno, someone who spends $150 on a Preserve Exclusive Pixie Rag Doll, designed to look “faded and threadbare”? And joke or not, it was hard not to view Truffles On The Nipplesgate as a deliberate upstaging of her rival, a shot over Paltrow’s bows that sent out a clear message: yes, you may have spent a proportion of your $29 weekly budget on seven limes, but when it comes to saying idiotic things about food, there’s a new sheriff in town, and her website’s flogging a wooden egg holder for $68 plus P&P. Stick that in your Bee Pollen detoxifying alkaline water and suck it up.
Just when it seemed as if things couldn’t get worse, a final body-blow: a feature in Heat magazine on the apparently complicated love life of Paltrow’s consciously uncoupled husband. It carried, almost as an afterthought, what LiS feels is the Rock Scoop of the Year: exciting news regarding Coldplay’s future releases. This was delivered in the form of a quote from an “insider”, who claimed, only too believably, that Chris Martin “tells friends that there’s no better way to find song inspiration than experiencing sexual chemistry with another human. He’s pretty much written an entire album of his love escapades since he officially became single.”
An entire album! Of Chris Martin’s “love escapades”! LiS has no desire to add insult to injury where Paltrow is concerned: doubtless the swashbuckling boudoir adventures of rock’s swingingest bachelor will be difficult listening for his ex. But it surely speaks for every red-blooded rock fan when it says it can barely wait to hear Coldplay’s steamy forthcoming long-player, Ballads of a Master Cocksman. It offers only one caveat, wondering how Coldplay can possibly “turn up the heat” any further than they already have on their notoriously raunchy XXX-rated back catalogue. Then again, if any band can, by God, it’s Coldplay. Prudes beware: they said it couldn’t happen, but Coldplay’s sizzling slow jams just got even more sex-sational! A bad week for Gwyneth Paltrow, perhaps, but what a day for rock’n’roll!
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