There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED: Gwyneth Paltrow is a scammer

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

Last week, Australian women spoke up after the beauty and wellness retailer Mecca announced Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow as the keynote speaker for their wellness event Mecca Life.Women rightly called out Gwyneth Paltrow’s particular brand of harmful misinformation that targets women.Paltrow profits off of peddling lies about women’s bodies. It’s not empowering - it’s harmful. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world, like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud.

But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Disinformed, a mini-series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd.

So I usually try to avoid calling out specific bad actors who spread miss and disinformation, because I think of it as a systemic problem. It isn't usually about one specific person spreading bad information, and I want to make sure we keep the focus on the people and institutions with power who could actually do something about it, like tech leaders and policy makers. But that said, I have someone who I kind of think of as my misinformation white whale that I just had to talk about today, and that person is a person. Gwyneth Paltrow.

So here's what's going down. Mecca is kind of like Australia's Sephora. It's a huge retailer that sells beauty and wellness products. But all was not well last week when they announced that Gwyneth Paltrow would be the keynote speaker for their virtual summit, Mecca Life. Mecca customers were not pleased, and many of them took to

social media to let the brand know. Paltrow and Goop peddle enormous amounts of misinformation and make money by preying on women's insecurities. Surgeon and author Nikki Stamp wrote on the event's Facebook page. Every time we endorse this behavior, we allow it to continue. Mecca has always been a champion for women, so now, when women are at risk, will you step up to the plate and cancel this terrible event, or will you let Australian women be further exposed to her nonsense? Mecca is not backing down.

Beauty and wellness mean different things to different people. Our schedule of events to launch Mecca Life has been carefully curated to offer something new, interesting, and innovative for everyone, they said in a statement online. Mecca turned off the comments on their social media posts, which is always how you know stuff that's gotten really tense. Now, even though I loved her as Margot Tannenbaum from the Royal Tannenbaum's, what Gwyneth Paltrow is doing is really gross. And we hardly ever point out how gross it actually is because she's rich and famous.

With her wellness brand goop, Paltrow has preyed on women's insecurities to make money by peddling so-called cures that are dubious at best and dangerous at worse. Here's a very short list of some of the nonsense she's peddled on her site. She said that fasting and herbs could help alleviate the symptoms of COVID, and eventually the National Health Service had to ask her to stop spreading COVID misinformation. A piece on goop says that Gwyneth swears by a practice called grounding or earthing, which is basically just walking around barefoot outside, to cure depression, which I find so offensive, and I think anybody who's ever suffered from any kind of mental health issue probably would too.

She promotes the healing powers of vassional steaming, which gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter, one of my favorite medical misinformation slayers, points out in her book, The Vigina Bible has no benefit, promotes a serious misunderstanding of anatomy and physiology, and has the potential to harm. So in short, it's a scam. Not only that, but it could actually hurt your vagina. A woman in Canada had to be treated for second-degree burns to her cervix and vational membranes after trying to steam her own V. Please do not do that to your vagina. Ouch!

And never forget that Gwyneth first got into the wellness world by selling jade eggs for people to shove up their vaginas for a whopping $70 a pop under the completely untrue claim that doing so could help balance your hormones. And this is really my thing. As you can probably see from Gwen's obsession with our vaginas, her brain is a brain. is clearly about convincing women that something is wrong with our bodies. And Goop is a for-profit company, meaning she makes money off of trying to convince us that we need to do whatever nonsense thing or buy whatever nonsense products she's selling to fix it. It's not just dangerous. It's also wildly anti-feminist. Your body is fine. Your vagina is fine. Trust me, it does not need to be

steamed. And don't get me wrong, this is not about me not liking woo-woo wellness stuff. Honestly, I wish I could say I was too cool to be taken by useless tinctures I see on Instagram ads. Like, I put mushroom anthogens in my tea every morning to boost my focus. Does it work? Probably not. But there's a big difference between being open to alternative wellness treatments

and straight up profiting off of misinformation. And that's what Gwyneth Peltro is doing. In addition to her editorial website, Goop and selling merchandise, Gwen has a Netflix show called The Goop Lab and an all-inclusive luxury cruise called Goop at Sea, which promises guests the opportunity to engage with Gwyneth Paltrow and Q&A's with their very best healers. And I don't know how much it costs,

but I can just tell by looking at the website is probably not cheap. So Gwen has turned misinformation into a huge empire. But women deserve better than having someone peddle lies about our bodies to make a quick buck. And honestly, I am so happy to see so many women in Australia making their voices heard and saying they don't want to support a brand like Mecca that would associate with someone who is basically

just a very well-dressed scammer. If a brand is okay with the kind of BS that Gwen is selling, that brand should not be considered reputable. We deserve better than someone making money off of lying to us and calling an empowerment. Just because Gwyneth Paltrow is an A-list celebrity who exudes a kind of unattainable yet effortless glow, doesn't mean that she's still not just a scammer.

And I hope what we're seeing in Australia means today is today, that people stop tolerating it and start calling it out for what it is. Great news, Tangodi fam. We won a Shorty Award for Best Podcasts miniseries. Major shoutouts to my amazing producers, Tari, Jonathan, and Mike. And not to get too sappy, but I want to genuinely thank you. Yes, you, person listening in the car or listening in the gym or listening on the trainer or whatever. Thank you to everyone who listens, subscribed, told a friend, left a review, sent me an email, tweeted at me. or just said,

hmm, this is an okay podcast, silently to themselves as they listened. All of it. All of it means so much to me. It is so important that we center women and marginalize people's experiences when we talk about the internet, and it has been a blast doing it with all of you.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate it, and I really thank you. If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi. We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangoati.com. Disinformed is brought to you by there are no girls on the internet.

It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more great podcasts, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, Help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles, so how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world.

Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

And nobody's telling you, exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

And we're going straight to the source the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more,

follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee. And I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know.

Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human