As Goop As It Gets

24:44And why do you think she decided to like really do it? Just pure ambition and kind of being sick of the Hollywood machine? Or do you think it was something else?

24:58Amy Odell:I think all of it and more. I really focused on Goop in the second half of the book because I think that that's her big cultural impact as a celebrity is that she showed how much money people will spend on wellness no matter what science tells us. And she gave wellness a gorgeous aspirational luxurious aesthetic. She commoditized it as a luxury good. And she gave it a rhetoric by talking about toxins and clean living and clean eating and clean beauty, getting toxins out of your life. I mean, what is a toxin? Like water can be toxic if you drink too much of it. Right. But she popularized this thinking and these ideas.

25:41Amy Odell:But your question was about specifically just why she, why she switched over. Okay. Yeah. So I think it was a lot of different things. I think she was one of the first celebrities to realize like, Hey, I'm using my image to promote Estee Lauder and American express. And instead of using my image to promote these other brands, I can use it to build my own brand that I have real equity in. She also really did believe when she sent that first Goop newsletter from her kitchen in 2008, that she had great information to share with the world. So the first newsletter had humble recipes for banana nut muffins and turkey ragu.

26:21Amy Odell:But it sort of quickly splintered off into like her favorite upscale hotels and restaurants. And oh, you should invest in a little black dress from Chanel because you can pass it down to your daughter. And I like this watch from Hermes. And when you fry oysters at home, you can use any type of caviar for the garnish. So her taste level really started coming through. So there was that, that she wanted to share this information that she thought she had that was valuable. But she also was a mom. And one of the many controversial things she said was about how, as a parent, she didn't want to go, you know, fly off to a set for a few months to film a movie because she didn't want to leave her kids.

27:03Amy Odell:And we can understand that as parents. Right. But the way she said it, she was like, you know, she said something to be effective. And I'm paraphrasing people with nine to five jobs don't understand. You know what I mean? And that there are like a slew of articles rebutting those being like, oh, yes, I have it so much harder than Gwyneth Paltrow when I go stand on the Metro North train platform in the freezing cold morning to go to my office job where I'm so well compensated, you know, so all of that came out. But I do think that that being a mom and wanting to be with her children more did have something to do with it.

27:40Yeah, I get that. And I do think also you're especially in those early years, your ambition changes. changes yeah like what you actually want changes and that and sometimes it goes back to what it originally was but it's still it's still different which is why I live in Los Angeles yeah I think

28:01Amy Odell:for her I think for her it it has come back a lot I mean we're seeing her she's going to be in this big movie with Timothee Chalamet at the end of the year um but she uh it's funny because in early interviews I found with her, she would downplay her ambition and she would literally say, I'm not ambitious, but I think ambition is a good thing. And I think that's one of her assets, you know, is that she has a big vision for her business. She has, I think in some ways, a very clear vision for her business, but the company, and I believe you've written about this, Lauren, just did too much and grew too big and the expenses were too great.

28:39Amy Odell:You know, she wanted to do everything. She wanted to do fashion, beauty, content, the newsletter, book publishing, the short-lived print magazine. There were other projects that came and went. So it was just a lot to juggle, and it gets expensive to build out a team to do all of those different things. Yeah, and you and Rachel Sturgatz are in the, I think, next week or in the next week, there's going to be a conversation with you and our wonderful Rachel Sturgatz about the Goop business. She's done. probably fabulous reporting on it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. She's, she's really on it. I remember before she's, when we worked at business of fashion together, we were going to do a goop story together and then we never did.

29:21And when she came to Puck, we were like, we could do goop.

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30:02Okay, I want to kind of go in a little bit into the business, but first, one thing about her and this is kind of coming back to that parallel with Anna they just seem like totally different people but she did always sort of be seem like she was in on the joke a little bit like she has that thing that a lot of founders or celebrities have where you can't always see what she's thinking but sometimes she is like exposes her I've heard of things she's blurted out in meetings about her ambitions for the business or whatever that like she should not be saying to a group of 15 people or would just be like sort of doesn't get give a shit what other people think and say whatever she wants and the fact that she does engage with press and understands like the first year I was at puck we asked her to do a gift guide thing and I was like you can totally have her do a thing from goop.

31:03I don't care. I just think she picked the sweater that she wore at the trial and was very funny about it. Like it in some ways she she engaged with us like she wasn't she wasn't like, oh, no, they've written that my company's in trouble. She's she did it. So it's sometimes it feels like she gets it and she's in on the joke and she's self-aware. and then sometimes it feels like the total opposite and is why the business is in the state it is now. But I'm curious, you know her better than anyone outside of her inner circle at this point. What do you think it is?

31:40Amy Odell:I think sometimes she's in on the joke and sometimes she's not. And I think that she's been able to brush off a lot of criticism. She's been able to lean into criticism and controversy to grow her business maybe better than, I don't know, any founder in the last 20 years. But things do bother her. I wouldn't say that she's completely unbothered by everything written about her. I didn't get that at all. I mean, there were some things, and I talk about them in the book and the press that did bother her, like particular magazine profiles or when she was featured in Talk. Both times she was unhappy with that.

32:15Amy Odell:There was a story in the New York Times about ghostwritten cookbooks that referenced her book and the collaborator she had. And she was upset enough about that to go on or seemingly upset about that to go on Rachel Ray to talk about it and be like, I didn't have a ghostwriter on my cookbook. So there have been times where, yeah, she's she's not been totally happy. I mean, it would be unreasonable to expect her to not have these reactions. That anecdote drove me nuts because I think Julia Tertian, who worked with her on the cookbooks, whether or not it was ghost writing or she just helped develop the recipes, whatever.

32:52I actually think Julia Tertian's biggest talent is helping people develop their recipes like her collaborations. She's very good. She's very good. And her books are are good, but they're not as good as the Gwyneth books like the Gwyneth books are amazing. I still we use them constantly in the house and the first two that she did with Julia. And it's too bad that that relationship. And I do see a pattern with her, with people who she is close with business wise. And then there is like Elise Lunen is a similar thing where they had a really good collaboration. Like they had a really good thing going, whether or not you agreed with conscious uncoupling and all the woo woo stuff.

33:40But like they really seem to be a good team. And then for whatever reason, it feels like she at some point breaks up with people.

33:52Amy Odell:Yeah. Essentially. Yeah. That's a good observation. And I think that that's why Goop can be a hard place to work because people worry about that happening to them because she can make you feel like you're her best friend. And when she makes you privy to her charisma in that way, like people feel great. They feel amazing. They thrive on it. But if she takes that attention away or she decides she has new favorites, people can become very stressed out and that stress can just permeate the entire office environment at Goop. Yeah. What do you think when you look back at that business, like what do you think they should have done in the beginning?

34:30Because right now they've restructured it for like the 15th time and it seems like she wants it to work and they want to sell. I know that. Sure, she does. She she's wanted to sell it for years. And but the the problem with it, maybe Goop Kitchen will be the which is technically a separate business and has different investors. Maybe that'll be the thing that really takes off. I don't I don't know. But but what do you think sort of went wrong and went right with with Goop?

35:04Amy Odell:yeah so i think that gwyneth to her credit she is like the original influencer because think back to 2008 social media was brand new and it was not a given that celebrities were going to participate in it and actors in particular were really slow to come around i think instagram launched was it 2010 i want to say um anyway so when she started this newsletter in 2008 like celebrities were not on the internet or social media, like not necessarily, but she was leaning into it and starting a newsletter and saying, Hey, I'm going to use my image to create my own brand that I have equity and that I own.

35:43And I think she was a visionary and having an instinct for people's

35:49Amy Odell:interest in wellness and being able to monetize that and dominating the attention economy with controversies and using that to her business advantage. I'm not saying I personally agree with that, but it did help her business to get all those eyeballs on her. What went wrong? I think that, you know, and this is based on talking to executives who were there. I think that they, they did too much. I think, you know, and to her credit, she's ambitious. She wanted to do it all, but it was too expensive to build out all those different teams. And, you know, what people said to me is that she might've had more success if she had focused on one thing like beauty.

36:30Amy Odell:Obviously now celebrities are going really hard on beauty. Maybe if she had leaned into that and made that really, really great, that would have worked. And then she could have branched off into clothing and other stuff. and I also think you know well I don't agree with a lot of the content that promoted pseudoscience now that they've cut back the content team I don't know that the company feels or that the brand feels like it has its soul like that was kind of the soul of it was getting a little window into Gwyneth's life a little window into her psyche where she was eating what she was thinking what wellness practices she was trying and now you don't get as much of that so it's just kind of like any other newsletter that's trying to sell you sweaters and moisturizers all day long.

37:15Yeah. I think there's something that my boss always says, like, do you want it to be a lifestyle business or do you want it to be a real business? And I think what she was building was a lifestyle business, which is awesome and can be like maybe even a hundred million dollars a year in sales, but it's much harder to make that into something profitable. And the next Martha Stewart, which is what I thought when she hired Lisa Gersh, which you detail closely in the book, I thought she was trying to do. And she could do all these different things. That's why I'm I'm a huge Gwyneth fan. I I've always have been.

38:00I love her point of view. I'm not as into the stuff, but I like reading about it. But it was always for me kind of the mix and that she had a real personality. And so I've always been kind of pro. I think. When when you get a bunch of investors, a lot of those investors don't care if it never sells because they just want to be close to her, but some of them do. And then also you just, you don't professionalize in the way that you need to, um, or to the extent that it, it can really, it can, it's, it'll be a licensing company, but my understanding is that her board, they don't really write her hard.

38:42Amy Odell:You know what I mean? No. Like, because she has that like powerful aura and charisma, that it factor, um, you know, to go back to her nineties title of being an it girl. Like she really has that and people really bow down to it. And she, that gives her a lot of control and power as a CEO. So that's all to her credit. Another thing I feel we should talk about is like the risk with these celebrity brands is that the celebrity stops promoting it and people stop buying it. Right. So you need to create a brand that can stand apart from yourself. And Gwyneth to her credit has talked about that in interviews, how she knows it's important to create a brand that can, you know, outlast her and survive without her.

39:22Amy Odell:But I don't know that Goop has done that. You know, you look at a brand like Skins, much bigger brand. They have had a lot of success with ad campaigns featuring Kate Moss, Charlie XCX, like they brought in new faces and that's very strategic. And that's crucial because if Gwyneth decides like, I want to go back to acting or, you know, I don't, I don't feel like spending all my time on this because she doesn't have to, you know, I do think that it might imperil their sales because she is such an effective driver of sales, which is again, to her credit. Totally. It is back to being that combo of like founder syndrome and celebrity syndrome where Kim Kardashian knows how to get out of her own way.

40:01And she, she wants one thing. She wants that thing to be successful. And so I think for Gwyneth, it's, it's more complex of what she actually wants out of group.

40:18i want to talk about the maha of it all and the jade egg and the all of that stuff and you're right that it was driving so much coverage and so much attention to goop in the mid 20 2010s with the goop cruise all that stuff and then uh jen gunter the doctor going up against her even i think that even was in a weird way beneficial. I have been very surprised because I have a lot of friends who are are Gwyneth people like me who in the last couple of months have been really turned off by like in the Vanity Fair profile. She doesn't come out and say RFK. I don't agree with him. And I was like, why?

41:08She actually sort of leaned into it. I was very surprised because And I will say, I don't, Rachel is the one who's covering Goop day to day for us now, but also I've never been as interested in the woo-woo part of her business. I've always been interested in what about the business model and like she'll have, she had multi-brand retail and is the clothing doing well? Is the beauty, what, you know, I'm, and I haven't thought as much about that stuff. But what I did notice very early in COVID was that they didn't go anti-vax. Like they didn't really talk about it at all. From what I remember, I remember there are a couple of vague articles, but that was the era.

41:49And you and you were obviously Amy's book is really comprehensive. You write very specifically about when they started to like pull away from the the woo woo stuff a little bit. But but that's why a can you talk a bit about her decision to strategically move away from the stuff and how that probably plays into the fact that she started getting rid of a lot of the editorial people? And then also why you think she hasn't been just like this Maha stuff is BS. Don't listen to it, which she should. Like that's that would be the responsible thing. You can be woo woo and not be Maha. Like as, as all my mom group WhatsApp group texts prove.

42:34Amy Odell:Yeah. I mean, that's true. So, um, so with the, with the less woo woo stuff on goop, I mean, there's still some of it there. It's not like it's totally gone and she'll go on a podcast and talk about drinking raw milk or she talked about it in Vanity Fair drinking raw milk. All of raw milk is going to do is increase your risk of getting a foodborne illness. Um, and particularly if you have young kids, you know, I interviewed a lot of experts and Gwyneth and group critics. And one pointed out, you have young kids at home. If you don't want raw milk in your house, you don't want to risk them ingesting that.

43:05Amy Odell:So there's that. But I think that there's overlap between RFK and Gwyneth and their rhetoric. And they have both sowed a distrust of the medical establishment. RFK version, correctly to your point, I think is a much more extreme version in that he's so anti-vax and it's terrifying to see the implications of that and measles that were eradicated in 2000 now roaring back. And I'm hearing that, you know, I was trying to think back to when my kids were babies and I don't recall feeling like I can't get on a plane with them because they didn't get their measles shop. And now I think that's where we are.

43:40Amy Odell:So, you know, this is really scary. And, um, I, I do think that the wellness industry and like similar to RFK, it's so to distrust of Western medicine and established science and the distrust of expertise and a distrust of, you know, health care in the United States and pharmaceuticals in the United States because they're because they make money. I mean, let's look at the numbers, though. You know, we think of big pharma, big tech, big ag, big food. Big wellness is a six point three trillion dollar industry. Big pharma is one point six or one point seven trillion. So it's much smaller. And I think the reason for that is that if you're going to get a new drug to market, at least right now, you have to show, you know, according to FDA requirements that it could help people.

44:28Amy Odell:Wellness products don't have to help anybody. And supplements are regulated like food, so it's easier to get them to market. it. But there is this overlap in the philosophy. And yeah, I think that if she wanted to denounce RFK, she could. And I don't know why she's not. I did not hear that she's anti-vax. So I don't think she's anti-vax. But yeah, she could say when she's asked about RFK, I don't agree with him. I think this is dangerous. That, of course, is kind of a political statement. It's a bit, you know, maybe inflammatory. Maybe she doesn't want to alienate that group of potential customers.

45:06Amy Odell:I don't know. Look, I think and I am not judgmental about stuff like this ever. I never talk about politics. I never post anything. I'm pretty old school in that way. But I think in this case, like, A, it would bring her a lot of good attention. And B, I just why? Why be so careful? like why suddenly turn the knob and, and be very like, we're pulling away from our, our, you know, uh, wellness content. And we're not going to say we're anti-vax because she's not. And I, I'm sure there were people who worked at group who were, and most people weren't, weren't because, because, you know, but like, I just personally think this is a case where it's just strange to me like why did she bother pulling back so much if when something like this happens she isn't going to use her influence because her saying that he was full of shit would mean something to people and it would also honestly bring respect to her for people who have maybe lost respect of her and that's what i think is interesting the comments that she's made publicly and only she knows what she really thinks.

46:24Amy Odell:Obviously, let's make that clear. But the comments that she's made publicly suggest that she agrees with him on some things. So maybe that's what it is. And I did not get the sense that she's selling, you know, that the wellness products that she sold were things that she didn't believe in. So I was told that she really believed in that jade egg. You know, like she I think she's someone who has been indoctrinated into this wellness world and is just kind of sharing it, you know, with her fans and with Goop's followers. So, and then regarding, you know, Goop pulling back, my understanding is that like a lot of consultants came in and out of there.

46:59Amy Odell:I know Rachel has done some reporting on this for you and Puck. So, you know, they decided to focus the business because they needed to streamline it on fashion, beauty, and food, food being Goop kitchen and wellness fell a bit to the wayside. I mean, they still sell some wellness products. I think the supplements I heard were hard for them. I kind of wondered if that was because like with a beauty product or with the clothing, you can see it on Gwyneth and then you want to buy it. Um, and with supplements, there's not the same cell there. Like, you know, like I can't, there's nothing sort of like immediately with a supplement that I'm going to be like, Oh, that's going to like help me look better or whatever they claim that it may do.

47:38Amy Odell:Um, but yeah. Amy, have you tried goop kitchen? no i know people love it because the guy who does it the guy who who works on it uh mario del perro he uh is behind mendocino farms which i have eaten that which is incredible yeah it's good i have to say it was better in the in the beginning as you really it's not as good as it was originally i was obsessed with it also we didn't have it on the east side and you know when you get things on the east side, then you're or you get things that you couldn't have before it, they become less special. But I do think it's a really great concept and is is is super smart.

48:20We actually were at a ghost kitchen once and that guy was picking our kitchen up on the west side. And that guy was there. The Mendocino farm farms guy talking about it. It yeah, but it's an interesting and I think it has a lot of potential.

48:35Amy Odell:Don't you think like to your point about the licensing. Like that could be a model maybe for the business, right? Like she wants to license the name. I think she should sell the company to ABG or another licensor. And then she should, you know, honestly, she could start over. I love that newsletter. I think like she, she could pull a Graydon Carter and like do something again. And that's has a similar vibe and it wouldn't mail. Yeah. Like that's what was so fun about it. I loved reading about her, her, her telling people to buy people a little black dress. Like when people are, are true to themselves, even if it's ridiculous and can be sort of, she can be sort of terrible, which is what the book indicates.

49:22Like she's, she can be mean. She can be, she's not a perfect person, but that's why people. She's authentic.

49:30Amy Odell:I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but she really is like she never pretended that she was someone she wasn't. And that's why people really like her. Yeah. And and I feel like I really got that in the book to the person who I was hoping she was who is not a perfect person who can be truly awful is the person that you depicted. What was the most fun thing? And then and then we can I'll let you get to your millions of other promotions. I'm sure you're doing this week. But what was the most like the maybe the most surprising or interesting part of all this. Yeah. I think that the most surprising thing to me is just, you know, going into this project, I was born in 1985.

50:12Amy Odell:So I remember Gwyneth growing up. I've seen her so much in the media, read so many stories about her, seen her on talk show so many times. And I was just surprised to hear about the side of Gwyneth that I had never seen before, which was basically what you were just describing, that she can be cold, she can be icy, she can be aloof. People compared her to Anna Wintour. I was really surprised by that. The Anna Wintour comparison had to do with basically her acting kind of like any busy editor-in-chief when she's running Goop, because she really is in there running it day to day. So you would expect Anna Wintour to like, you know, if you walk into her office, she's busy.

50:47Amy Odell:She doesn't have a lot of time for you. You have to ask your question and get a quick answer and get out so she can get back to what she's doing. And Gwyneth is kind of the same way. I also thought it was really interesting how people said she's a great editor, not only in terms of the taste level and the curation and the selection of products she's featuring and gift guides and all of that, but also in terms of the words. I think that she has a gift for language. And I think that's what really made her a great actress. She learned to speak Spanish when she was in high school perfectly. People talked about that a lot and she's proficient in other languages.

51:23Amy Odell:So I think she's really good with language, even though she wasn't an academically inclined person. And then the most fun part of it probably was reporting on that Conde Nast magazine. Because Conde Nast, when I did the Anno book, you know, I got obviously a lot of interviews about Conde Nast, but it's become easier to get people to talk and people, you know, there's something delightful about talking to a journalist who has sort of a similar viewpoint on, on, you know, the stuff is you. And, um, so that was, that was great fun. People, people had fun reminiscing about that. Yeah. I love that you quoted Bob Sauerberg who basically got left out of Michael Grimbaum's book.

52:06And I sort of felt bad for him. Really? Yeah. I mean, it wasn't really, I don't know if you've read it yet, but he's so nice. time. He's so nice. And the book is not really about the last 20 years of Condé. It was really about the 80s and 90s. Yeah. So I understand. And I'm sure he talked to Bob or, you know, great guy, Miss Bob. He's a nice guy. He's really nice. But I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you for being here. Do you have the the subject of your next your next one? Do you think you'll keep doing these like biographies of women? Do you feel like that's your thing in the book world?

52:42Amy Odell:Do you think I should do biographies of men? Maybe that's interesting. Who do you think I should write about? I don't know. I really don't know. It's hard to think of a good subject for a biography. Yeah. Who is interesting enough that is also important? I think some some influencer. Like, look, there's going to be a million Kim Kardashian books, so you don't want to do that. I can't even imagine though, Lauren, like going through the Gwyneth archive. Can you imagine the Kim Kardashian archive? What about a Kris Jenner? She would be interesting, I think. She would be interesting. I'm not a Kardashian like person.

53:25I know.

53:26Amy Odell:I don't, I don't, I never like watched the show. Yeah. I get it. But she's a genius. So people did, someone said to me like, because I was just comparing in an interview like Kim Kardashian and Skins and all those brands to go. And someone said to me, you know, like the Kardashians businesses, like they could work because those girls are business animals and Kris Jenner is behind all of it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a topic for another day, but I, I am mad respect for everyone involved. Amy, thank you so much. Congrats and good luck this week. I'm sure it's going to be great. Thanks so much.

54:07Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck co-founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy, and director of editorial operations, Gobby Grossman. An additional thanks to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Bob Tabador.