Gwyneth Paltrow has said that she was fired from a movie over backlash to her “conscious uncoupling” divorce announcement with Coldplay‘s Chris Martin.
Paltrow and Martin announced their divorce in 2014, issuing a statement saying they were ”consciously uncoupling” after seven years of marriage.
The term became a pop culture phenomenon, and in 2017, Paltrow said she could understand that people would view it as “dorky”, but that she believed it was still “very worthwhile”.
Now, the Oscar-winning actress has revealed that the announcement took a toll on her career at the time.
Appearing on the latest episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, she said: “You know, I was supposed to do a movie at one point, and it was right after the kind of ‘conscious uncoupling’ thing with Chris.
“And there was a lot of harsh stuff in the press, and I think the distributor was like, ‘This might be too hot to touch’,” she added. “So that was great, because I was getting a divorce and then I got fired, which was awesome.”
Paltrow went on to explain that she was trying to find a better way through a difficult time in her life, and the “conscious uncoupling” idea — introduced by sociologist Diane Vaughan back in the 1970s — gave her that framework.
“Say you had a really nasty divorce or your parents had a really nasty divorce, and then you hear this idea that it doesn’t have to be done this way,” Paltrow said of why people had a harsh reaction to the phrase. “I think the implicit learning is like, ‘Oh fuck, they’re saying I did something wrong,’ which of course is not the intention.
“But of course, that makes sense to me,” she continued. “‘Is the inference that I messed someone up?’ Like, that’s not a nice thing to contemplate. So I do understand why it was so personal for people, because it was. You only see that kind of reaction when it’s personal.”
In 2018, Paltrow reflected on the divorce, saying she was ”in a lot of pain” at the time, and couldn’t believe the reaction the statement got.
Last year, Paltrow became a temporary spokesperson for Astronomer, the tech firm at the heart of the viral Coldplay “kiss cam” incident.
In other news, Paltrow is currently starring in Marty Supreme alongside Timothée Chalamet.
The story is inspired by Marty Reisman, who was known as the “wizard of table tennis” for his professional career that ran from 1947 to 2002. Reisman won 22 ping pong titles and five bronze medals at the World Table Tennis Championships.
NME gave the film a glowing five-star review, which read: “The direction is so frenetic that it somehow makes table tennis even more thrilling than the rubber-burning race scenes in F1, while there are at least three jaw-dropping set-pieces that Safdie lands on you like gleefully delivered trick shots.
“This is a story about living a great life, however you may define that. It is a film about living fully and without fear, a cynicism-free zone where, for all their fast-talking, people love each other so much it makes your heart feel like it’s about to burst. Talk about a smash.”
