Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Goop

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

We've all joked about Gwyneth Paltrow's *candle.* But does this boho Hollywood elitist girlboss ever go too far? (As in, cult leader far?) This week, Amanda and Isa unpack the charismatic movie star��s ever-roastable wellness empire, Goop, and how its "cult" status may be a cause for concern, with extremely special guests Kirbie Johnson and Sara Tan, hosts of the Gloss Angeles podcast (glossangelespod.com / @glossangelespod). Head to FentySkin.com and use code CULT20 for 20% off a Start'rs Bundle, OG, or Fragrance-Free. For listeners of the show, Everlywell is offering a special discount of 20% off an at-home lab test at Everlywell.com/CULT Grab your Liquid I.V. in bulk nationwide at Costco or get 15% off when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code cult at checkout. Get started today - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code CULT to save an additional 15% off your first order

The views expressed in this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. So I'm going to show you my favorite Goop products. Before I sweat, I always love to use this GTOX Ultimate Dry Brush. It's an amazing exfoliator. I like to brush always towards the heart to encourage blood flow.

Goop jeans, repair body butter. This is actually the best kind of red carpet skin secret. This is the Himalayan Salt Scrub Shampoo. It's an unbelievable product. Thank you so much for hanging out in this fall with me. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian.

Every week on our show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group that puts the cult in culture, from true crime super fans to theater kids, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult and see culty memes and BTS pics, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm personally on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-U-D-I-N-A-A. And I'm personally on Instagram at Amanda underscore Montell.

Feel free to check us out on YouTube. You can watch our show there on video, and if you want to support us further, you can hit us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult, where our episodes are available ad free. Thank you to Fenty Skin for sponsoring this episode of Sounds Like a Cult. Fenty Skin is high-performance skincare for all skin types designed for you, me, and we. Fenty Skin is giving our listeners an exclusive promo code to try out the starters. Head to FentySkin.com and use code CULT20 for 20% off a starter's bundle.

OG or fragrance free. Do you want to stay more hydrated but need a little more oomph than water? Check out Liquid IV. Liquid IV hydrates you two times faster and more efficiently than water alone. Get your Liquid IV in bulk nationwide at Costco or get 15% off when you go to liquidiv.com and use code CULT at checkout. That's 15% off anything you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CULT at liquidiv.com. Everlywell at home lab tests can help you on the path to living your healthiest life.

Everlywell is offering listeners 20% off an at home lab test at everlywell.com slash cult. That's everlywell.com slash cult for 20% off your at home lab test. Thank you to our sponsor Framebridge, quick and easy custom frames. Get started today, frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to framebridge.com and use promo code CULT to save an additional 15% off your first order. Just go to framebridge.com promo code CULT. That's framebridge.com promo code CULT. We're feeling jittery.

We're feeling anxious. Maybe a wellness supplement could help us. Yeah, maybe it could. This is the Martini, we call it the emotional detox bath. And this is one of my absolute favorite products that we make. I bathe in this every single night. That was my way of transitioning into today's topic, which is the cult of Goop. Which all things aside, sounds like poop.

Has anyone ever talked about that? Well, it's a play on two things, Gwyneth Paltrow's initials. But also, they sell a lot of potions and serums and tinctures, which could be described as Goopy texturally. Oh, I thought you were going to say tinctures that help you poop. They probably will. If you swallow enough of the stuff on their website, you probably will shit your pants. I saw on Instagram that Kourtney Kardashian's brand Pooche and Goop are collabing.

Oh yeah, you don't watch the Kardashians? Sorry, sorry. No. I did ask at a party the other day and everyone looked at me like I asked if they ate raw dog meat. I was like, I'm sorry that I watched the Kardashians, dude. What neighborhood were you in? The party we went to. Oh, well, remember that?

Yeah, well, because those people are like neighbors with the Kardashians. They're like, yeah, I look over the fence. That's how I watch them. Yeah, but I'm like, you're not better than watching reality TV. No, they're not. No one's better than watching reality TV. It's like the only way to relax is to watch other people live their life. It's true.

I love to unplug to drama. That doesn't really matter. Exactly. But anyway, the combination of Pooche and Goop is poop. Okay, it is. Yeah. And they're collabing and I'm happy for them. You are?

Happy is a stretch. Yeah, happy is a stretch. But you know who I am happy for is Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak. They have a podcast called Pooge, which is a play on Goop. And it's this like podcast about scams and the wellness industry. And it's so funny. If you want to hear more about this kind of subject, go listen to their podcast. Today, we're talking about Gwyneth Paltrow's controversial wellness.

I was going to say brand, but it's more of a religion group. Some questions to lead with Gwyneth Paltrow, gifted entrepreneur or grifter, snake oil salesman or wellness guru. I just feel like Goop is where spirituality, health and capitalism intersect. And celebrity. Yeah. And I find it like kind of embarrassing as a woman that I'm like, come on, babes, like we could have really girlbossed in any direction and like this is what we chose.

Well, it makes sense because we girlboss in the general direction of the culture at large and Goop was launched in 2008, which was the beginning of the sort of mainstream new age wellness boom in the United States, at least the contemporary iteration of it online. It also makes sense because if anything, like Gwyneth Paltrow has created an enterprise and has done a really good job as a business woman. If anything, she was like, all right, what do I already have a market in and what can I capitalize on? And as we're going to discuss, she leaned in hard.

Yeah, she leaned in so hard. That's how you make money, babes. She really is very shrewd at branding herself because we ultimately give people the cult leader ish power that we've been conditioned to think they deserve. So while, of course, we would give Elon Musk the power to techno boss us into the future and we support him as a billionaire and a tech entrepreneur and a space man because he looks like the type of white cis male person that deserves that type of power. Gwyneth Paltrow is this conventionally beautiful, thin, white, blonde, famous woman who has

this sort of nurturing angelic, cherubic face who looks and sounds like the type of person we would trust as a wellness authority. Yeah, and I mean, it totally makes sense for the time period in which she launched her company like 2008. But now she's getting a lot more backlash and questioning because white women have been more caramelized and at times rightfully so at times more exaggerated. But I think like culture has now shifted and changed to be like less trusting of people who look like her white, thin, rich.

It's like people want to eat the rich now and they look at her and they're like, we don't trust you. And yet she's been able to get away with so much for so long. Yeah, she's trying to get in on the joke, but it's like, you're not funny. Let's talk about when Goop started and like the origins of Goop. Goop you mentioned started in 2008. It did. I forgot about this.

It started as a newsletter and has since expanded into a consumer shop, a lifestyle brand and a general content machine. As they always do. Something that kind of stood out to me was that the way that Gwyneth Paltrow says that she got into health and her health journey is that her father was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999 and died in 2002. That kind of reminds me of like other cult leaders who always have like a serious illness story.

That's so true. Either of themself or of a loved one. A lot of the wellness brands that used to pitch me when I was a beauty editor more often than not would begin with a very similar story of someone who had breast cancer. A lot of wellness brands will lead with this extremely relatable personal tale of someone in their life that is touching, but it doesn't automatically give you license to become an authority in the space. Yeah.

Traumatic events like obviously lead a lot of people to like get involved in those spaces. It makes sense if you lost a loved one of yours to something like you open a nonprofit or you donate certain organizations, but like you look to alternative sources of healing. Like how can I prevent this from happening again? Yeah. If the mainstream system isn't totally working, but I feel like traditionally when people do do that, they do it in like a way that's like, oh, like I'm running a 5K or a marathon or something to raise money for something else.

Whereas Gwen did it in a way that was like, oh, I'm starting a company to make money. Yeah. Like she's not donating money to anyone. No. I mean, maybe in her private life, allegedly. Yes. She was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to, you know, facelessly, invisibly, anonymously start donating money.

Although I will say it like when celebrities start charities and like use their face to market it, like I don't, I don't necessarily judge that as a classic marketing strategy, but she didn't even do that. She was like, I'm going to start my own business. Yeah. She started a business. She didn't even start a nonprofit. It's not just not a nonprofit.

It's a really large company. It's valued at $250 million as of 2020 and they do have really loyal followers who call themselves Goopers. And as we know, language is a ding, ding, ding situation. It's controversial because a lot of really ridiculous pseudoscientific claims have just exploded in headlines all over the internet. And we can list some of the most absurd ones because they really are entertaining, but also disturbing.

Some may remember the great Jade Egg fiasco in 2017 where Goop started selling a $66 Jade Egg that claimed it could improve everything from orgasms and hormonal imbalances to feminine energy when inserted into a woman's vagina. And that came out, gynecologists immediately responded and they warned women that the egg could actually be dangerous and they hit Goop with a $145,000 fine for unsubstantiated marketing claims. Say that five times fast. I didn't even know that they were hit with a fine before we looked into it for this episode

because they still talk about the egg. Oh yeah. It's kind of like when rich people get speeding tickets or parking tickets, it's just a suggestion to them. They're like, what's the cost of me parking here? They're like, oh, I'm going to get a $180 ticket. I don't care. I've heard so many stories of celebrities parking in a no parking zone in front of Fred

Siegel or whatever the fuck, knowing that they're going to get their car towed and have to pay $500. They're like, I don't care. Yeah. I have all the money in the world. Yeah. And that's maybe one of the unchecked power elements of Gwyneth and her brand is that the fines don't stop them because the price tag on those fines is so low comparatively.

That's why fines should be relative to your income. Like parking tickets should be like a percentage of your income, obviously very, very low, like in the decimal points. But if you were to get fined by like relative to your income. I feel like you're one of the city council advertisements I'm getting all over YouTube right now. ESA for city council. Yeah, then maybe rich people wouldn't like zoom past neighborhoods where children are

at play. Yes. So more of Goop's most infamously ridiculous claims were the v-steams who could forget back in 2015 when gynecologists also freaked out because Goop wrote an article claiming that shooting vapor up your badge could like help keep it clean, which is just like misogyny spreading more messaging that vaginas are unclean and disgusting and something for these gynecologists who are just like trying to live their life and do their job and they're just like in their office and they're like fucking Gwyneth.

She published another article and then they have their like clients coming into the office being like my vagina is burning and they're like fucking a dude like when is this woman going to stop? Seriously, they're like can't we get back to our pap smears instead of treating Gwyneth's victims? Yeah, they're just like in the office. Oh my God. Did you hear?

No, I didn't hear one. Oh man. Goop has done so much of this. They've suggested there's a link between underwire bras and breast cancer. They've suggested that earthing, aka walking around barefoot, can cure insomnia. You know, when I look at some of these claims though, it actually, and this is a pattern that keeps coming up, is like there are in some of these points, half truths. Like spending time in nature is good for you.

Yeah. Like you don't have to be shoeless. You can just go out for a walk and like it might help you sleep better. Yeah. But now that I've heard that, I will be walking around the Silver Lake Reservoir without shoes because I've not been sleeping well. Yeah, I think the problem is not when you make a nuanced suggestion, it's when you make an oversimplified claim about a health cure.

Yeah, I think one that was particularly dangerous was when she suggested B-venom therapy in a 2016 interview in the New York Times. I claimed that being stung by bees helped her completely eliminate an old injury, which is insane to me because like getting stung by a bee can be so dangerous. That's how the father in Bridgerton died. Spread awareness. Yeah. You know, when I read things like that, it's like, I used to work in, you know, entertainment

media. Celebrities say ridiculous things about their health and wellness routines all the time, but they're not also simultaneously trying to start a health and wellness conglomerate and claim authority on the subject matter. I think she is just wildly out of touch and I know this to be true because I interviewed her once back when I worked at The Beauty magazine and she really does have this cult of personality. She is a movie star at the end of the day.

She does have charisma. She's very beautiful. I asked her like, if you went to a grocery store and you had $20 to feed your family, what would you buy and she was like, hmm, what's cheap? What's cheap? Tacos. I would probably make tacos. First I would buy a handful of avocados.

Handful. I was like, there's your $20. Yeah. Avocados are expensive. At Air One. Also, what is she going to put the avocados in the tacos or was she going to make guac? I'm very concerned for how this woman makes tacos. I don't know.

You don't put avocados in tacos. I don't know. At least in Southern California. Yeah, true. But you know the wild thing is that I can roast Gwyneth for being so disconnected and irresponsible now. But while I was interviewing her, she was so charming and had these sparkly eyes. And I remember being like, tacos, genius.

I love that. Famous people have that oomph. They have that thing over you. It's like they're fur, foremones, haremones, pheromones. Yeah. They've like, they've like curated pheromones that make you be like, I'll do whatever you want. Absolutely.

And it really just goes to show how when you are in the moment with one of these cult leaders, it is very difficult to call them on their bullshit. And that's why the truly, truly dangerous cult leaders don't want to leave you any space or time to think to yourself. Yeah. There was a $15,000 sex toy on sale on Goop in 2016. Girlina, you could have gone on Amazon and gotten a $40 vibrator like the rest of us. Yeah.

Also, LOL. This is how culty America is now. Our two choices are either to join the cult of Gwyneth Paltrow or the cult of Jeff Bezos, depending on your tax bracket, of course. You've created a $15,000 sex toy because you don't know what to do with your money. Yeah. The only problem is that then you have the power and the influence to tell other people who don't have that kind of money that they need it.

And who don't have access or the time or the will or the energy to fact check every piece of wellness information that they come across online. We should talk about the actual in-person cult convention that Goop has thrown, the Goop Summit, which I actually attended in what year was that, I think 2017 on assignment. I didn't want to go there. I didn't pay to go there. Tickets cost 1,000 to 1,400 something dollars. I went there to interview some fashion designer.

I walk in there and it's just a room full of thin, tall Gwyneth look-alikes in these long peasant floral dresses. I was wearing leather pants. I'll never forget. Very chic of you, ahead of the times, really, if you think about it. Thank you. It starts pretty cult-y, right? Like, apparently there was a Kundalini meditation session, like, right in the beginning.

Oh, my God. And Kundalini Yoga is the practice at the basis of the happy, healthy, holy organization, which is the first cult that I cover in my book and is a get the fuck out. Not to be like a director in Hollywood, but the dichotomy that Goop presents is like so fascinating to me because it's like immediately it opens with a Kundalini meditation session. And then at the inaugural summit, they featured a doctor performing a facelift in front of an audience. I'm like, meditation versus facelift.

It's the cult of LA. I remember this too. There was it in LA. It was in LA. It was in, I think, Culver City. I left early. I must have missed the facelift. I honestly left early because I was creeped out.

But I remember in the courtyard, there was an aura reading place, a crystal something or other session, and then inside, there was an alternative holistic doctor claiming that fear causes cancer. And at one point, the notorious anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Kelly Brogan went up and spoke about how no one needs medication for depression. It was that juxtaposition of sort of like fun, silly, let's take this activity with a wink, wink, next to health advice being preached at vulnerable people. We all want our lives to be better.

Apparently, there was a speaker at the Goop Summit, Caroline Miss, who told a participant that their fear of being raped was due to a misalignment in their second chakra. In that case, free woman on this planet has a misalignment in their second chakra. We may have mentioned this term before, but that is a classic example of what's called spiritual bypassing. When you dismiss a very valid, complicated issue, explain it away with some kind of metaphysical argument. We can explain away the fear of being raped.

Yeah, it's patriarchal society. Goop itself has confessed that it relies a lot on anecdotal evidence for its claims. What is commonly said on the Netflix series The Goop Lab, which is their Netflix six-part docuseries, is we have a lot of anecdotal evidence. Wow, so it sounds like they just kind of know they're full of shit and they just don't care. The thing that's colty to me about all of this is the like cross between illegitimate scientific advice being given and the woo-woo nature of it.

There are people who are going to save money up for $1,000 tickets. For some people, $1,000 for fuck's sake, for me $1,000 to a $1,400 ticket would be a lot of money. And so unless you're like a really wealthy, like it's a fun little day event, you'll go, you'll have your fun, you'll be above normal society for a day and then you'll go home. But for someone who saved up for this event, someone who was looking forward to it for months is going to take everything that happens at the event to heart. And then they're going to go home and then they're going to do all the things that these

people suggested. And I find that... Predatory. Yeah, based on my own observations, I don't know how many of those people there were there. I mean, I guess you can't really tell how rich someone is from how they look, but you can tell how privileged someone is from how they look. And this was a lot of privileged people who, as we were just mentioning, can be vulnerable to cultishness because of their privilege, because their survival is already taken care

of. Like they have everything they could ever want or need. So now what? Now there's this sort of existential longing inside of them. And here's Gwyneth Paltrow on a stage with her beautiful, long, maxi dress and her pretty face being like, I'm going to tell you how to self-actualize. Yeah. And it's like if they do have free time, then they're going to find problems and then they're

going to want to find solutions to those problems. And then I think that this is where they look for those solutions. From what I witnessed, overall it kind of just seemed like the Goop Summit was like Coachella for Boho Karens. It was like this escapist day where wealthy white women could get together, leave their normal lives for the day and get their auras red. But enough red flags emerge that day that it's worth criticizing. Yeah.

And I also think it's worth noting that it was an in-person summit. Once something goes from online to like in-person, there is so much more space for different kinds of danger to take place. A different kind of danger, but also a different kind of transcendence. Like in a way, this is the way that cults should be happening. If this were just the Goop Summit, I don't think it would be as worthy of criticism as it is now because it's also this online brand. Then I think where it becomes more of a danger to the masses is on the Goop website, right?

Because that's something that anybody can read for free. And there have been blogs on there. There was one blog post called What to Do After a Cancer Diagnosis. The guy who wrote it was cited as a doctor, but he actually just had a PhD in classical studies. So he was not a medical doctor, he just studied the Greeks. Yeah. That's really dangerous to not say the difference between like a PhD doctor and like a medical

doctor. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't even a real doctor and not only that, but he studied the classics in Greece. Like what did he just do? Like rub olive oil on everything? Like, yeah, that'll fix it. I tried that with my hair.

It doesn't work. Okay. So Goop has also been known to endorse other much more nefarious cults, including the Mental Health Disinformation Spreader, Kelly Brogan, who we mentioned, and One Taste. If you have not looked up this group, you should. It's not even one we would cover on our show because it's such a get the fuck out level cult, but it's a very predatory sex cult. That group was covered on the BBC4 podcast, The Orgasm Cult.

Folks who are into that kind of shit should check it out. I don't believe that Gwyneth Paltrow herself has set out to harm anyone. Yeah. She's not smart enough to be a supervillain. Like, can you imagine her waking up in the morning and as soon as she does her skincare routine, she just is like plotting for the demise of women everywhere in our society via vagina egg. That just doesn't feel like something she would do.

She's like fallen into this role. Yeah. I think for multiple reasons, I cannot imagine Gwyneth going full supervillain. Yeah. She slipped on her lotion and fell into this position. But I believe that the wellness industry is an incredibly fraught place. We haven't even mentioned how there's a whole alternative wellness to QAnon Pipeline. We'll talk about that in our interview.

And I think when you're not careful with an extreme amount of power like that which Gwyneth Paltrow, the movie star slash now wellness guru has, it can spiral out of control in a very cult like way. Even if you don't intend it to. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's something that like celebrities and people with a lot of influence need to recognize. That's a responsibility that you carry when you have like the privilege of being able

to like make your money by influencing people. For sure. And it's not like she's endorsing selectively $97 eye creams where the stakes are low. It's like, what's the worst that can happen? Your eye bags aren't going to go away. It's not like she's only endorsing $120 leggings. What's the worst that could happen? You're now out $120.

This is medical advice at the end of the day, no matter how many disclaimers there are. Yeah. And that's just troubling. I don't know. She's a 49 year old woman. So I get the vibe that like if she does scroll on the internet, it's kind of like on Facebook. Dude. So like what if Gwyneth wakes up one day and scrolls on Facebook and sees an article that

grasped her attention and she shares it with her listserv. She's just emailing misinformation, resharing it from Facebook. But if you sign up to my listserv on my Instagram, I'm going to share real information like where I'm performing standup comedy, when you can see me in your city. Sign up to my listserv for jokie jokes. Shameless promo. We love it. Yeah.

Facts, facts, facts, baby. I would never lie to you. Speaking of Gwyneth Paltrow scrolling on the internet, she like a lot of celebrities does not Google herself. She does not as a practice check up on her bad press. But if you're disseminating this type of information, you should be interfacing with your following. You're not just a movie star.

Like you need to be checking up on your criticism if you're in that role. I will say another of the cultiest things about Gwyneth and this speaks more to her power as an executive in Hollywood is that whenever I have tried to critique her in public in any capacity, even on like an Instagram live, I've had people say to me like, oh, no, no, I'm not saying anything about bad about Gwyneth in public. Oh, like other people aren't willing to talk badly about her. Yeah. People don't want to talk badly about her because they're afraid that that might ruin

their chances of pursuing a certain type of career because she has her hands in so many different things. I actually feel like that is a consequence more of the cult of Hollywood rather than the cult of Gwyneth Paltrow because it's like similar to when we did the stand up comedy episode. The more comedy I do, the more afraid I am of speaking about other comedians that I like disagree with because like, you don't want that to ruin your career. Yeah.

There are very few people in Hollywood who are untouchable, and I feel like the rest of us, we really are just like still trying to like hustle and get our bag pretty much totally. To like pay for our rent. I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow, I think is truly untouchable. And I think what makes her a little cultier than the average A-lister is because she is so much more than an actress. If you're in the wellness industry, you're not going to talk bad about her.

If you're in the skincare industry, you're not going to talk bad about her. If you're in Hollywood, you're not going to talk bad about her. If you're a fucking author, you, but I'm doing it. Yeah. Like people don't talk badly about people in their circles or in their profession. Yeah. And if she's so like omnipresent in multiple professions, then like no one's talking about her.

Yeah. At the same time, everyone's talking shit about her. Oh, for sure. I mean, this has been said, but I think she does have somewhat of a twinkle in her eye about her own self. She has to because she made that fucking diaper joke. She knows she's like a bougie problematic fave. Yeah.

I actually almost didn't want to say anything bad about her because, and this is so funny, freaky, but like out of the blue the other week, a request came in that goop who like has their hand in television production, wanted to meet with me about my book. And I was like, Oh shit, we have a cult of goop episode coming out. And I almost didn't take the general because I was like, this is a conflict of interest. But then I decided to take it because I wanted to hear what they had to say. And we have this very brief conversation. The person on the call was someone who I used to know working in the beauty industry.

And at the end of the call, I was like, okay, I have to like mention the elephant in the room cult of goop. Like I critique wellness pretty aggressively in my work. Could this really be a fit? She was like, we try to be really individualistic about the advice that we put out. But you know, if you want to publish something negative, like you can do that. I think that it's great that like your name checking her. But I also don't think it's like that big of a deal because like she doesn't care

about me. No, not that she doesn't care about you. I think she really just does get name checked like all the time, all the time, all the time. Yeah. And that's like her MO like at this point is like, keep my name in your mouth. Exactly. She is like the definition of all presses, good press. That's so true.

Gwyneth knows how to exploit the media for her own benefit. Yeah. Every time they post something controversial, there's a storm of tweets, articles, et cetera, that Paltrow literally calls cultural firestorm. Like she does this as a media strategy pretty much. Yes. I mean, as a celebrity, she knows how word of mouth and gossip and how all of that can like grow into free press.

And I think she's using her star power and beauty and suggesting you too can look and be like me if you just follow all these recommendations and she's also using her star power and beauty to be controversial and to be spoken about in like the zeitgeist. She really is when you combine cult leader strategy with celebrity wellness capitalism. Yeah. So up next, we're going to talk to two editors in the beauty space, Kirby Johnson and Sarah Tan. They have a podcast called Los Angeles, which is so much fun.

You guys should listen. And they're going to tell us what they think of Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop. I feel like we talk about liquid IV even when we're not recording ads for this podcast. Yeah. I really do love it. And I have a liquid IV water bottle. Same. Really?

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Bada bing, bada boom, baby. I also have like, I'm just like so cultured that whenever I go abroad, I buy art wherever I go. Look at you. You're lazy, so I just have like art sitting under my bed that I haven't framed in years and I'm like so excited to send it into FrameBridge. Reader painted my book and I bought their painting and I really need to frame it. So I'm probably going to use FrameBridge.

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I'm Kirby Johnson. I'm a writer. I'm a content creator. I started my beauty career on camera producing and writing at PopSugar where I grew their beauty video vertical, so I really learned a lot about how people consume content on the internet. I love science. I love ingredients.

I love learning how things work, especially in the beauty space. I'm fascinated with celebrity and internet culture and entertainment. So when I write about stuff or I create content or we do the podcast, I love to kind of focus on the intersection of all of those categories. I'm Saratan. I am the other half of Glossy Angeles. I am the beauty director at Refinery29 as well, a long time California girl, very immersed in LA Hollywood culture, and yeah, I'm missing Amanda and all the beauty events, but so thrilled

to see you thriving here. When did you first learn about Goop and what was your first impression of it? Goop started in 2008, so we were in college. I did all my internships in LA. I knew I was going to move out here, and so I think everyone was talking about Gwyneth and her newsletter and all the healthy recipes that she was making, and so I just wanted to be like a part of that because I felt like that's what you needed to do to be a part of the LA scene.

I was very fascinated with it, and I thought it was like the cool thing to do. What about you, Kirby? When I think of Goop, the thing that stands out in my head is the conscious uncoupling of 2015. That's really what put, I think, Goop on the map for a lot of people when she announced her divorce from Chris Martin. People love to hate Gwyneth, and there's definitely some validity there, I think, in some aspects, but Gwyneth is always on the forefront of what people want to know about and ultimately

what they become cult members of because she was doing the newsletter thing way before everybody else was, obviously, that transformed into what Goop is today, and the celebrity brand of it all. She would have been Meghan Markle's, right, like Meghan Markle could have been the high Goop. Like Lively, trying to do her thing that is now defunct, too. For me, coming from Texas, Goop was woo-woo. I don't know if that's a term we like to use on.

Sounds like a cult, but it was very woo-woo to me coming from Texas, like, oh, these crazy L.A. people drinking their green juice and going to Pilates every day, and not having any gluten. Yeah, yeah, no gluten, all of that stuff. What do you think are the cultiest things about the Goop brand for better and for worse? Is it the price of the products that they now sell? Is it the pseudoscience that they market? Is it the archetype of woman it's marketed to?

Yeah. They even describe what is the brand. It encompasses so many things, right? If you go to Goop.com right now and you look up dermatologists, typically an expert in the beauty field that a lot of beauty journalists would refer to in order to get legitimate science fact-based information, there's a ton of stories featured on those websites with board-certified dermatologists. But then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have people that she featured in the Goop

Lab, which by the way, have y'all seen, did y'all watch the Goop Lab when it came out on Netflix? No, that propaganda. I actually enjoyed it. Same. I did. I enjoyed it, y'all, and I feel like you both would enjoy it as well. There is an excellent, excellent episode about the female orgasm, and I think they

did it so incredibly well. It really came from a woman's viewpoint. Anyways, I honestly would tell people to go watch it. I watched it obviously under a skeptical eye, but they have people on that show where they talk about energy healing, and this one guy, John Amaral, he's this head energy healer. He has these classes for $2,500 that you can come and learn how to heal all of your ailments just through energy in the world, and Julianne Huff's is like a devout believer in this. You guys need to watch this episode, by the way.

What's it on? Netflix. It's on Netflix. Okay, I heard about the female orgasm episode, actually. So watch that one, but then watch the Julianne Huff one. Yeah, there's some weird stuff that goes on, but obviously watching it, I'm super cynical and critical and skeptical of everything, but I thought the female orgasm video was done really well.

There's also a video on mushrooms where they go and they do psychedelic psychotherapy, and I thought that was really well done as well. But then they have these, if you Google this guy, John Amaral, this energy healer, the first thing that comes up is John Amaral quack, John Amaral scam. So it's like the juxtaposition of both. There's legitimate fact-based information on Goop, and then you can buy a jade egg that you stick up your vagina that apparently can give you bacterial infections that sold out, and they sold it for, I don't know, hundreds of dollars.

To Kirby's point, you can find on the website all of these incredible certified experts, but then among them are all of these questionable people, and they're being put on the same level defined as an expert, which is really obviously problematic. And then same thing with the show, but one thing that they do really well, and Amanda, when you call it propaganda is so funny, is that it makes Gwyneth so, I mean, she is like a likable person, right? When you watch the show or when you watch her on an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, she makes fun of herself.

She knows that people think of her as a certain person or being a quote unquote cult leader of Goop, but you get why people aren't drinking her Kool-Aid, right? That's the cultiest thing, that she's actually an Oscar award-winning actress, but now is seen as an expert in a wellness community, as a rich white woman that often pedals things like, you know, having pure quote unquote ingredients and being quote unquote non-toxic. A huge source of misinformation for many things, while also providing legitimate expertise on a lot of other things. It gets conflated a lot of the time too, so totally.

But she also does that in a way where she like kind of plays it safe because I was reading an article and they put it really well where they're like, she's like the facilitator of it all. And she's not being like, I'm like claiming that I know this and I can cite these sources and I'm the expert, but I'm going to interview this person who is the expert. And so like almost like protecting herself in that way. It's almost like because she's an actress, she can take information from legitimate sources and illegitimate sources and then regurgitate it in a way that is digestible for her audience,

because that's literally her job as an actress is to be relatable and digestible. And the danger in it is that she's picking and choosing where those sources are. You're so right. Like we forget or and we shouldn't that she is playing a role. Like this is just her latest role and it's such a cult leader through line and such a pattern to like distance yourself from any of the chaotic things that the underlings below you are like fighting about or having discrepancies about because you're all knowing and you never actually say anything that could be misconstrued as problematic.

You're you're absolved. And it's so funny that when she does go on late night or she goes on these like public forums, she distances herself from the problematic things by joking about them. Because if she got defensive, that's when like more problems would occur. But she's like, that's so funny. Like I love that people make fun of me and she's relatable by like letting people make fun of her. And that is ingenious and dangerous.

That is the fucking actress in her. What do you remember about the time in the beauty and wellness space when Goop was launched? I honestly feel like she was like on the forefront of it. Of like the clean movement. Yes. Like before there was clean, maybe you went to Whole Foods to buy your beauty products or whatever. You weren't really necessarily going to a section of Sephora to make sure it followed

all these like quote and we say quote unquote clean because on Los Angeles, we are hyper hyper critical of the clean beauty movement just because that is also like almost like a sub reddit of like a sub category of like skincare cults, right? She really was the one that kind of put like wellness on the map. Is that right? No, because oftentimes wellness and a lot of the practices that we have learned that are inherent to this category, they come from women of color, right? And they come from marginalized communities that have been doing these things for centuries.

So a lot of these rich white women, Gwyneth Paltrow included, have kind of like taken those things and become kind of like the face of them, even though they really have nothing to do with them. To me, one of the most problematic things is obviously these claims that she's making in regards to health and like how it affects people overall while being when Goop posted on their website that there was little evidence to support the many claims that sunscreen helps prevent cancer. What?

That's harmful information. Totally. There's a whole now like anti sunscreen, anti vax, anti medicine community that's like emerged that I feel like Goop overlaps with in kind of a disturbing way. Like mistrusting science has different implications now than it did when Goop emerged. It's terrifying. Like I recently did a video about this class action lawsuit that was brought against Rodan in Fields because they include an ingredient that is almost identical to what's in Latisse,

but they don't need a prescription for it, except it gives you all the same side effects. And it's like before I posted this was thinking to myself, I'm scared that people are going to think I'm saying like I'm a part of a clean beauty movement or because I'm kind of calling out some of these dangerous things that are going out in the beauty world. So like to your point when you're talking about like these overlaps of like anti-vaxxers, I would put like mommy bloggers in there. Is that okay to say? Like anti-vaxxers, mommy bloggers, like clean skin care and then like wellness, reaching

a higher nirvana through self care type thing, all of those overlap in my opinion. Gwyneth is one of the huge cult leaders in that space. We're mentioning how Gwyneth has like a tongue-in-cheek wink-wink attitude about her image, but what about the fans? Like do you think most fans of Goop, first of all, how would you describe them? And do you think most of them worship the brand ironically slash with self-awareness or is it genuine? For the most part, most people who subscribe to this like Goop lifestyle want to like live

healthier lives, like eat better, you know, work out in a way that can help them look like Gwyneth, you know, do Pilates or whatever. They want to know like what those like gluten-free recipes are that they can whip up at home. Do I really think that all of them are like waiting to buy those yoni eggs and stick it up their vaginas because Gwyneth is telling them to? I don't think so, but I definitely feel like there's just like this aspirational you know side of it where they just want to live a better healthier lifestyle and they're looking unfortunately to all of these rich white, thin women who seem to have figured it all

out. That's what I think, but I'm sure that there are a lot of them who they're spending chunks of their paycheck, you know, they're believing this harmful information and they're spending all their money to go on that one Goop cruise that she's peddling in Spain in a few months. She is truly the Elon of the Boho Karens. Boho Karens. She is. Yes.

Kind of to Sarah's point, when I think of like a Goop fanatic, the person that comes to mind is like a woman maybe trying to keep up with the rich white women Joneses. I can't see any like person that actually has legit stresses in their life. Being like, oh my God, I have to get this yoni egg to shove it up my vagina because Gwyneth Paltrow told me, you know what I mean? I think the people who are, for example, just making Gwyneth's recipes are different than the people who are like going to the in-person events and buying the yoni egg. Those people are the fanatics and it almost doesn't matter if they're doing it ironically

because your vagina doesn't care if the jade egg is in there as a joke. It's going to get an infection either way, you know what I mean? Gwyneth's ideologies are so bizarre to me because like she talks about like having like clean and natural and non-toxic, like the non-toxic verbiage kills me. But then she gets like injectables, which I'm like, do you understand that Botox is literally a toxin that you're injecting into your face? And then at that like big, you know, Goop summit that they did a few years ago. Did you go?

No, unfortunately I did it. I went. I went and got threads in her face in real time. Like what? Yes. Were you there for that part where that doctor said like to not eat? Yes, but there was actually a lot of food there. I'm not lying.

The ads of like a Goop food delivery do look really tasty. Well, that's what I'm saying. You throw roast chicken in the picture and I'm like going to fucking be hungry. The defining feature that I'm hearing is just the sheer hypocrisy. I mean, I remember like I used to work with a very Goopy person who I will not name who like would complain when she had menstrual cramps. And I remember once offering her an ibuprofen and her being like Amanda yelling, you know, I don't do Western medicine, but her face is pumped with Juvederm.

The lack of admitting in Hollywood of people who like get Botox, it's like there's nothing wrong with it. Just like stop being a hypocrite about it. No, but this is the crazy part. Literally, Gwyneth was the face of not Botox, but neurotoxin alternative that you inject into your face. I was truly like, how are you even doing this? Like you the whole thing you promote is like non-toxic lifestyle, yet you're talking about

getting injectables in your face like this is what I do not understand. Yeah, it's like the perfect example of hypocrisy. But have either of you ever interviewed Gwyneth in the past? And if so, what was she like? I have and let me tell you, she was charming and I really, really liked her. How would you describe her charisma? First of all, I was like about to piss myself. I was so nervous because you hear like all these stories about like that she's like a

monster, right? Or maybe it's just her team, but like I was like, oh my God, I have to be on my shit for this because I don't want her like making fun of me. Like I was afraid she was literally going to like laugh at me. So I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. It was before the Goop skincare line came out and she had partnered with Juice Beauty. I was so nervous and I was also like recovering from food poisoning, but like she, A was wonderful, so friendly, like just wanted to hang out, was funny as hell.

Like I was like, oh, I feel like we're having a real conversation and I think this speaks to her charisma. I didn't feel like she had a wall up like so many celebrities do when you interview them. This the time like you're trying to pull like really good answers out and she just doesn't care and I honestly think that is the secret sauce. Like Gwyneth Paltrow does not have to care. She has already accomplished so much in her life. Goop has taken off like she was one of the first celebrity beauty entrepreneurs out

there. Like I know that you guys are talking about how she is like the cult leader, right? And she kind of, it's like, you know, it's this like character that she plays. I honestly just don't think she gives a fuck. I don't even think she thinks about it. It's like, she doesn't even remember what Marvel movie she is. She does not care. Maybe she's like, oh, I love this iced tea product that like, you know, cures heart disease.

Let's like put it on the site and someone's like, great, I'll write about it. And she's like, cool, whatever. Figure it out. I don't think that she is as engaged as like we maybe want to believe she that makes so much sense too, because it's like, that's what makes someone cool, like not caring inherently, and also her not caring means that she's not doing proper research. So she is like the God of the company. She's just like, oh, I like this thing.

And sometimes it might be factually and scientifically safe and sometimes it might not be and then everyone just does what she wants. Yeah, I think she's just like profoundly out of touch because of the privilege. I mean, oh my gosh, have you guys seen her the tour of her house? Like I've seen pictures of it. I haven't seen the tour, but it doesn't look like someone really lives out of touch. She's like, it's like, it reminds me of being in like a Parisian apartment or something. It's like a huge mansion.

I remember seeing like this look in her eyes that I've never quite clocked in another human before. It was at once completely absent, but at the same time, like very dialed in. I was like, I can't tell whether you're in on this joke or not. If you watch her the Goop show on Netflix, that's like very much her role in the show too. Right, Kirby? It's like she's just there as like the host to sort of introduce the topic, but then she

lets everyone else talk about like, you know, what it is or experiencing it or experience it. Yeah, she doesn't do. I don't think she did Wim Hof. I don't think she did the psychedelics. She didn't do like the orgasm thing and if she participates, it's like very quick and like easy. It's nothing like deep.

She's the mascot. This reminds me so much of the episode we did on an Instagram therapist that I didn't name out of fear of harassment and lawsuits, but she too will like do this very clever thing that will make it seem like she's participating in a conversation, but she's actually not when something happens in the news media, some like social justice issue, a political issue, she'll take to her Instagram stories and she'll post a poll or something and be like, what do you think? So she never has to say a damn thing or establish a real belief or a real opinion about anything

at all. Yeah. Kirby, you were pleasantly surprised when you met her because you'd heard all these horrible things. Do you think that they intentionally spread like bad rumors about her so that when you do meet her, you are pleasantly surprised? I mean, I don't know, but honestly, like I feel like her team is so buttoned up like the people around her.

So maybe it really is like the scare tactic of the people around her. And then once you get to her, you're like, everything's great. And then maybe behind closed doors, she's like bitching to them about like what she hated about everything. So then that's why they were crazy. Yeah. It reminds me of like the Ellen DeGeneres scandal. Except unlike Ellen, I don't know if Gwyneth Paltrow is cancelable.

She's basically just like Joe Rogan. People don't love her in spite of being problematically culty. They love her because of it. Obviously the phrase cult followed is used as a marketing buzzword, a ton in the wellness and beauty industry. When do you think a cult followed brand becomes too cultish for comfort? Honestly for me, it's when they prey on very vulnerable people, like especially women. It really grinds my gears.

I get really pissed off when people say you should buy our product versus other products because that product is making you infertile. You're infertile because you washed your hair with this product. You're infertile because you put this on your body. I think there's so much fear mongering, especially around infertility. And I don't blame any birthing person for believing that stuff because the common consumer does not know better. The whole reason why clean at Sephora even exists was because a bunch of brands decided

to start promoting their products as clean. Little does the consumer actually know. Clean is not regulated at all. There's no standard for clean by any one body. And so just as much as they think that the FDA needs more government and regulations around cosmetics and personal care products, there needs to be regulation around terms like non-toxic, clean, and natural because the fact is, is that a lot of those products affect women.

I legitimately hate that. There's women out there or birthing people who are thinking, I can't have a baby because of this particular reason because of what I'm using. The anxiety of thinking whether you are fertile causes stress and then that stress itself can cause other issues in your life. Because you're like, I don't have the money to be able to afford the products to make me fertile. And then it's kind of just spirals into itself.

I feel like 21, 22, the year of scammers. We're seeing so many stories, especially on television in terms of documentaries and talking about scanning. Yeah. I completely agree with Kirby. Like I said earlier, everyone just wants to live a healthier lifestyle and they're believing in these people and these brands because they think that they are going to live longer.

And they'll be healthier because of it when brands like Goop are making these claims that are false, that have no research to back them, that are sourcing people who are not true experts in the field and are lying to them and these decisions will then later be even more harmful and can maybe even cause them cancer because they're not wearing sunscreen. That's when it becomes a big issue for me. And that leads us to our final question. Do you guys think that Goop has crossed that line? I definitely think it's a cult.

I don't think it's malicious, honestly. I think it's what Amanda said where it was like this indifference, this like privilege, this life that she's living, like she doesn't have to care and it's kind of like whatever. Yeah. But that's how even the most destructive cults all start. They're never these genius masterminds. They're always people with like too much privilege and too much confidence who just like can't stop themselves before the power becomes exploited to the end degree.

But do you think that Gwyneth is literally like, if y'all don't use this yoni egg, you're going to become whatever. But is that the definition of a cult? I don't know. I don't know. It's so fluid. I don't know either. Amanda.

I don't think she is. But I think she's making enough money to not, yeah. To not need to do that. Yeah. To not need to. To slap my name on it. Will you guys go on assignment to the Goop at Sea to tell us how it is? If someone pays me, I'll do it.

Sponsor them. Cause like that's where you're going to really find out who is in the cult and like what they're really like. And then I think when it's going to be- If I don't see, I'm not coming back. If folks want to keep up with each of you and your work, where can they do that? Like Los Angeles Pod, all social media, Sarah is at Sarah Tan, I'm Kirby Johnson, Sarah is S-A-R-A, Kirby is K-I-R-B-I-E. Issa, out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck

out. What do you think about the cult of Goop? I think it is a live your life. No way. I kind of just want to say it to see your reaction. You're such a troll. I think a watch your back. It's got to be a watch your back.

When Goop surfaces in the news, I do kind of roll my eyes like remember the diaper. Yeah. Exactly. Those who don't remember this news. Goop came out advertising this like extremely expensive, bejeweled, mohair diaper. When it came out, Amanda and I texted each other and we were like, oh no, actually it was like Sarah and Kirby. Kirby texted us and they were like, oh my God, did you see that this diaper came out?

And then like 20 minutes later, they were like, oh my God, they were trolling their followers. It was just a stunt to call awareness to the diaper tax. Gwyneth Paltrow came out and was like, this isn't a real product, we're just raising awareness for the ridiculousity of the diaper tax. Diapers are a necessity, they shouldn't be taxed as a luxury, but the reason why we all thought it was real is because on Goop, it very well could have been and it felt like just as much a publicity stunt to make Goop relevant, it was so self-referential.

And for people like us who like don't follow Goop or aren't in the newsletter, like when we see news like that, it doesn't matter, it's just kind of like an annoying fly in your face. You just flick it out of the way. But for mothers, that's just another reason for mothers to be like, nobody understands me, even if they only felt that for the day that this advertisement looked like it was real. Moms don't need to feel that way.

I think for people like us, when we saw that news, because we're not on the listserv or not actual followers of Goop or Gwyneth Paltrow, because we're not in the cult of Goop. Because we're not in the cult of Goop, but if you are in the cult of Goop and like you're following the Instagram account and like you're on the listserv, you're reading the website. And then I think like it is definitely like a hard watch your back. I mean, because you can just go down the list and analyze it.

She's this charismatic leader role. She's telling members how to act, how to live. I have spoken to people who've been on literal business zooms with her and she is a very strategic business woman. Nothing gets by that woman business wise. I think for me, we mentioned it earlier, but one of the cultiest things is the fact that like fines haven't stopped the brand from growing. So like that's something that happens a lot with cults.

There's so much like legal loopholes that cults can get through because it's like really hard to hold them accountable. And in the few ways that they are trying to be held accountable, they can't because they don't care about the fines. They'll just pay for them. Yeah. Well, that's our show. Thanks for listening.

We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culting, but not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by Casey Colb. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Noemi Griffin. Subscribe to sounds like a cult wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode. And if you like our show, feel free to give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple

podcasts and check us out on Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.