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Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Blow Jobs: 12 Takeaways from Gwyneth Paltrow's Interview with Howard Stern

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | January 16, 2015 |

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | January 16, 2015 |


Pajiba whipping girl and publisher of GOOP.com Gwyneth Paltrow was on Howard Stern this week, and there were enough soundbites coming out of the hour-long interview that eventually I broke down and listened to it in its entireity.

My take away? She’s kind of … great?

I’M SORRY.

I know, I know! I mean, it’d be easy to take bites from the interview out of context and turn them against her, but in reality, she was funny, candid, honest, and sweet. She didn’t really talk about those things that annoy us most about her — her diet, GOOP, her parenting philosophies, etc. — but she did talk openly about her past relationships with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. She dispelled some rumors. She talked a lot about her fondness for her Dad, and she also talked at length about Chris Martin and their divorce.

I feel like I’m betraying many of you, but she was fascinating and warm, and she didn’t say anything objectionable (although, out of context, the blow job part at the bottom probably sounds bad, but it didn’t really in the context of the interview).

Anyway, here’s 12 takeaway from the interview.

1. The first film offer Gwyneth Paltrow ever received was as the romantic lead in Vanilla Ice’s Cool as Ice. Her Dad, Bruce Paltrow, basically forbade her from doing it, saying that — if that’s the only movie she ever does — she’d forever be thought of as the woman from the Vanilla Ice movie.

2. We all know that Robert Downey, Jr. basically worked Iron Man without a script. Paltrow said that, during filming, he would look at the script and say, “This is all shit,” and Paltrow would cringe because the writer was standing right next to him.

3. Her father also advised her to turn down the roll of Roller Girl in Boogie Nights, because the nudity would have upset her grandfather.

4. Apparently, she was also in contention with Kate Winslet for the lead role in Titanic (she says that, contrary to popular opinion, she didn’t turn down the role. Basically, the role came down to her and Winslet, and Winslet won the role.

5. Howard Stern insisted that she tell them who her best famous friends are, and she said that most of her friends aren’t famous (including her best friend), but her best famous friends are Cameron Diaz, Jay-Z, and Beyonce.

6. Gwyneth’s Dad was completely heartbroken when she broke up with Brad Pitt. He was kind of the perfect, midwestern guy. She also said that she kind of broke up with him because “he was too good for me,” and the way she said it, you kind of believe her.

7. She initially turned down the role in Shakespeare in Love because she was dealing with the fallout from her breakup with Brad Pitt (although, she was dating Ben Affleck at the time). Rumors that Paltrow took the role away from Winona Ryder (which allegedly led to their falling out) are not true, however, according to Paltrow.

8. Ben Affleck, she said, wasn’t in a good place in his life to have a girlfriend when they were dating (I think the implication is that he slept around). “He’d have been better off dating a Scores stripper at the time.” She’s still friends with Affleck, and is very fond of Jennifer Garner (they are neighbors and hang out socially).

9. She made fun of both the fact that she used “consciously uncoupling” in her divorce announcement (and in the context of what she was actually trying to do in divorcing Martin and maintaining a healthy relationship with her kids, it really does sound slightly less obnoxious) and she even poked fun at naming her baby Apple (“just get me to shut the fuck up, already, right?”). She did, however, say that Apple was actually Chris Martin’s idea.

10. She doesn’t have a problem with Chris Martin dating other women (even Jennifer Lawrence) because she trusts that he’s a good dad and will make the right decisions for the kids.

11. Coldplay wrote a “few” songs about her, including “Fix You,” which was about helping to put her together back again after her Dad died.

12. Gwyneth did confirm what she once told Chelsea Handler (which Handler repeated on her show) that sometimes, she does give blow jobs in order to end fights with her partners because she thinks it’s important sometimes to “be a girl” and show him “that he’s a man” (again, that sounds worse in print than it sounded while she was discussing it).

Here’s the entire interview. Don’t listen to it if you want to maintain your disdain for her.