What sensible woman believes any vitamin supplement can help cure exhaustion, bad digestion, constipation, irregular periods, colds and other infections?
Or that carnelian crystals treat infertility, Vitamin D3 wards off cancer and a perfume improves your memory?
Well, the gullible millions who follow Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop do, apparently.
What sensible woman believes any vitamin supplement can help cure exhaustion, bad digestion, constipation, irregular periods, colds and other infections? Well, the gullible millions who follow the lifestyle website run by Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured), apparently
And many are prepared to pay £72 a month for these miraculous products. Goop is now under investigation by a marketing watchdog over ‘deceptive’ health claims about 50 of its advertised products.
The U.S. not-for-profit group TINA (Truth in Advertising) says Goop ‘does not possess the competent and reliable scientific evidence required by law to make such claims’.
No surprises there. The only real eye-opener is that there are so many well-heeled, middle-class women falling for this nonsense.
Certainly, there’s something irresistible about Gwynnie, the self-styled guru of pure living. She looks fabulous, is worth about £40 million, has two children as beautiful and healthy as she is and has consciously uncoupled, in apparent bliss, from her former husband Chris Martin.
So many buy into her because, in this silly world of celebrity, they want to be like her, look like her. And to be fair, she’s not making these products, just allowing them to be sold through her website.
But by linking her name to them, she is preying on the vulnerability — and bank accounts — of women. And although the site admits in small print that the claims have not been ‘evaluated’ by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there’s no doubt Goop presents them as true.
TINA accuses Goop of using a ‘terribly deceptive marketing ploy’ to exploit women for financial gain. Tickets to the organisation’s first ‘wellness’ summit in June this year cost up to £1,170!
Gwynnie doesn’t need the money, so why is she allowing herself to be used as a portal for what seems to amount to little more than 18th-century quackery?
The truth is Gwynnie looks good because, as she admits, she hardly drinks, seldom smokes, exercises frantically, avoids carbs and thinks a great meal out is a mung bean casserole with toasted tofu on top.
It’s got nothing to do with crystals — and the sooner we girls ignore Goop’s shameless claims about them, the better.
Jen’s Jolie revenge
Having just been ranked the second highest earning actress, Jennifer Aniston, 48, says she’s looking forward to turning 50 as life just gets more exciting.
Now happily married again after Angelina Jolie stole her ex, Brad, her life is back on track — and she earned about £20 million last year.
Meanwhile, Angelina is being mocked in Hollywood as the 21st-century Norma Desmond, the embittered diva in Sunset Boulevard who’s past her prime — and waiting for the close-up that will never come.
Having just been ranked the second highest earning actress, Jennifer Aniston (pictured right and left, with David Schwimmer, in the TV programme Friends), 48, says she’s looking forward to turning 50 as life just gets more exciting
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After the Grenfell Tower disaster there have been many stories of stoicism and survival, yet few compete with that of Ines Alves.
The 16-year-old lived on the 13th floor and escaped with only her phone and her chemistry GCSE notes.
She sat the exam at 9am the next day in the clothes she was wearing when she fled the blaze. She got an A grade. And top marks for sheer grit.
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On the death of Bruce Forsyth, his Strictly co-star Tess Daly said she was ‘heartbroken’.
‘From the moment we met, Bruce and I did nothing but laugh our way through a decade of working together,’ she added.
Funny that, as in his last interview Bruce said he disliked using an autocue. (In Tess’s case, an autocutie.) ‘It’s a lonely show,’ he said, ‘as I didn’t work with anybody. Tess and I said hello at the start, did a joke, at the end we’d say goodnight.’
Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly gave heartfelt tributes towards their colleague Sir Bruce
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Jeremy Paxman attacks the huge wages the BBC pays its top stars as ‘ridiculous’. He wasn’t saying that when he was getting £1 million a year for presenting the hardly-watched Newsnight and University Challenge.
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All loved up after the birth of their twins, Amal and George Clooney spent some adult time over a candle-lit dinner on holiday in Italy.
With a wonderful new-mum bosom, the once stick-thin Amal is certainly blooming.
George, on the other hand, has withered. He’s so baggy-eyed, grey and stooped, he could pass as her dad.
That’s the price of being a new father in middle-age for you.
Or could he just be auditioning for the lead role in Ocean’s 111?
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The ageing rocker Rod Stewart is releasing a new version of his 1978 hit Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? One thing has not dimmed with age — his sense of humour.
Work will save Ant
After two months in rehab, Ant McPartlin is back home with his wife Lisa. He admitted his descent into a painkiller and booze addiction ‘would put strains on any marriage’.
Strained: After two months in rehab, Ant McPartlin is back home with his wife Lisa
Lisa wasn’t even allowed to visit him in rehab.
Ant has moved his mum Christine into the matrimonial home so his wife can go back to work as a make-up artist on Strictly Come Dancing, but many have said having the mother-in-law in the house will add to the pressure on his relationship with Lisa.
I’m not so sure. They’re both grafters, and work for both of them is the best route back to a normal life. With Lisa dabbing blusher on Strictly’s stars, let’s hope they waltz off happily into the future.
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After his wife Kim was mown down by a reckless cyclist, leaving their two children without a mother, Matt Briggs vowed: ‘Out of this senseless carnage, I shall try to bring change to the law.’
He wants cycling regulation to protect pedestrians. ‘Perhaps in this way I can honour my wife.’
In the same way, after Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered last year, her husband Brendan — left to bring up their two children — was determined that good should come from her death. He set up The Great Get Together (a series of street parties throughout Britain) to raise money for charity and honour her belief that there is more that unites than divides us.
Two dignified widowers, not consumed by hatred, but keeping the fire of love alive for their wives and children.
How DID she fool the police?
Police spent £250,000 investigating nine false claims of rape by Jemma Beale, 25, and imprisoned one innocent man for two years.
Jailing her for ten years this week, the judge said she was a ‘very, very convincing liar who enjoyed being seen as a victim’.
And the police must have been very, very gullible.
Beale, left, would have to lose 6st to do a passable impression of Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard.
Police spent £250,000 investigating nine false claims of rape by Jemma Beale (pictured), 25, and imprisoned one innocent man for two years