GWYNETH

A gossipy portrait of “one of the most resented celebrities in the world.”

Odell followed up her 2022 biography Anna—as in fashion arbiter Wintour—looking for “another woman whose life and career had the same combination of public fascination and private complexity.” That quest led her to Gwyneth Paltrow, whom we find, in the opening pages, hawking the “egg,” a vaginal insert meant to “improve orgasms and muscle tone.” That was just one of the goods offered by Paltrow’s website Goop, which former employees say catered to “‘wealthy white women’ between the ages of twenty-five and forty.” Along the way, Paltrow has promoted antivaxxers and endured a lawsuit from California district attorneys who disputed what they alleged to be bogus health claims. Odell paints Paltrow as a calculating and not particularly nice person, with both qualities in view in Paltrow’s horning in on Martha Stewart’s lifestyle turf—about which Stewart herself said, “If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart”—to say nothing of her treatment of former friend Winona Ryder. But Odell also gives Paltrow full credit for her acting skills and work ethic on set, which helped movies such as Shakespeare in Love (which netted her an Academy Award), Emma, and The Talented Mr. Ripley blaze at the box office. Still, to Paltrow’s detriment, Odell adds, the actress has as many duds as hits on her résumé, such as Shallow Hal and View From the Top. Granted, the second film paid her $10 million, peanuts next to her work in the Iron Man franchise, but Paltrow now seems to have worn out her welcome in Tinseltown, a victim of bridge-burning ambition and the changing whims of pop culture. Or, as Odell writes, “after a certain point, the public tires of hearing how amazing the world’s most beautiful, privileged women are.”

Catnip for those who can’t get enough Hollywood buzz.