Gwyneth Paltrow reveals her father passed during her first ever trip to Italy

Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed her father Bruce sadly passed away during her first ever trip to Italy in 2002.

The American actress, now 50, was travelling with her film director father – who was battling oral cancer – and after his traumatic death couldn’t return to the country for nearly a decade. 

Speaking on her Goop Podcast she said: ‘We were doing our first road trip after my 30th birthday and he kind of died on me’.

Adding: ‘It complicated the trip a little bit’.

‘When we were on our road trip, and I found out he was sick… and he was coughing up blood’.

She continued: ‘I said we have to go to the hospital, he had been hiding it from me because he didn’t want … he really wanted to finish our trip’. 

‘I was like.. we are going to the hospital, and he was like: ‘we have got to get to the [luxury hotel] Splendito’.

RIP: The American actress recalled travelling the country with the film director – who was battling oral cancer – and following his death, she couldn’t return to the country for a decade (pictured in 2000) 

Gwyneth continued: ‘He really was trying, I was like we are going to the hospital and he ended up dying’.

She went on to reveal the tragic loss of her father, who was 58, made Italy too painful a country for her to visit and didn’t return for nearly a decade. 

Admitting: ‘I had a real aversion to Italy for a long time’  before her first husband Chris Martin, 45, surprised her with a trip. 

(pictured together in 2014) 

She said: ‘On my 40th birthday, 10 years later, I was having a lot of anxiety about it turning 40 -I am about to turn 50 and I kind of give a sh*t – but turning 40 I had so much anxiety about it’.

‘By that point I had the two kids, we got on a plane, and I didn’t know where we were going. We all of a sudden realised we were landing at Genoa and we were going to the Splendido’.

Adding: ‘It was such a nice surprise, it was like a completion’. 

Family: Gwyneth pictured in 2002 with father Bruce and mother actress Blythe Danner 

‘My best friends were with me, and my father was like a father to them too so it ended up being a really beautiful experience that we all got to be there and come full circle’.

Gwyneth previously spoke about her grief following her father’s death on the Wylde Moon podcast with Holly Willoughby, deciding the pain as  ‘physical’ and as though it would ‘split her open’. 

She explained candidly on the podcast: ‘I lost my dad to cancer when I was 30. He was only 58. It gets so abstract as the years go on. You are so far away from the last phone call, the last meal you had with them the last embrace, your relationship with them is in another realm.

‘When it first happened I never anticipated that it was possible to have a feeling like that. It was not in my lexicon of emotions. It was so physical it felt like it split me open. 

‘After the funeral I was living in London and I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I thought I was having a heart attack. The only reason I didn’t call the emergency services was because I didn’t know it was 999 in England!’

‘But I thought I was dying. It was really really tough, I don’t know how we got through it, it was really messed up. It’s sad he’s not part of my life now.’ 

Tears: Gwyneth previously spoke about her grief following her father’s death on the Wylde Moon podcast with Holly Willoughby, deciding the pain as ‘physical’ and as though it would ‘split her open’ (pictured in 1999)