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Gwyneth Paltrow Panics Over Goop’s Future but Won’t ‘Relinquish One Iota of Control’
Gwyneth Paltrow is still throwing her heart and soul into her wellness brand Goop, which remains her No. 1 priority beyond all else — but she’s panicking over her future of keeping up with competitors in today’s highly competitive lifestyle arena.
“Gwyneth’s biggest strength and biggest weakness when it comes to Goop is her refusal to sell or relinquish one iota of control to anybody else besides herself, and she has been approached by a murderers’ row of CEO types who would gladly mange the business for her, but she always turns them down,” an insider exclusively tells Life & Style.
The Academy Award winner, 51, launched the brand in September 2008; it began as a weekly newsletter before expanding into original products, a podcast and even a Netflix docuseries.
As of late, however, sources say that Goop has been stagnant. “It’s a $300 million business that has been stuck at that valuation for years,” a source reveals. “They make money but where is the explosive growth?”
The actress and businesswoman hasn’t appeared in a film since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and previously said that it would be “very hard” for her to do “any acting right at the moment, just because of my job” with Goop.
“Gwyneth would rather run [the company] herself, and turn down all kinds of acting opportunities, than let somebody else run it day-to-day,” Life & Style‘s source explains, adding that Gwyneth would like the company to evolve into “a money volcano or, better yet, a hot publicly traded stock.”
Still, the source says, “Right now there are no plans to take Goop public,” adding: “Gwyneth loves owning it herself and hiring all the employees herself and taking all the profits for herself. But this is not standard business practice and usually with a brand like Goop, you put it on the open market and reap a massive reward.”
Adds the insider, “From Gwyneth’s point-of-view, this was a cute idea she came up with while emailing her friends, and she’s sticking with it because she knows where every penny goes and she knows exactly how much money she’s making on it annually. It’s a lot more than she ever made in her acting career.”
People have compared the lifestyle maven to Martha Stewart, who eventually took her company public. But, as Gwyneth reminds her team, “Martha went to prison for insider trading,” the source says. “Gwyneth would rather avoid that kind of pitfall and keep her company private. She has turned down every overture to sell and loves running this operation, even though people keep urging her to open it up to the public markets.”
