Gwyneth Paltrow has been an A-list celebrity for decades now, with her personal and professional life consistently making headlines throughout that point. She went viral for coining the term conscious uncoupling in relation to her divorce from Chris Martin. And she recently explained why co-parenting after the split was so important.
While the Shakespeare in Love actress has been busy with her lifestyle brand Goop, she was influencing behavior long before that company began. Namely through Paltrow’s dialogue around conscious uncoupling and co-parenting in the midst of divorce. She recently spoke to Bustle about the intense feelings surrounding that split, saying:
I was very burdened by this idea that I can’t get divorced, and it’ll be a failure, and this is not the right thing for the kids and all that. It weighed very, very heavily on me.
Sometimes celebrities really are just like us. Like so many people, Paltrow felt some shame or failure about splitting up with Chris Martin. One can only imagine how being a public figure might exacerbate these feelings, especially with fans following the couple’s marriage and growing family.
Paltrow’s comments to Bustle offer a peek behind the curtain on what it’s like working through personal issues while being a celebrity. As we all know, she and Martin would work hard on co-parenting despite their break-up and the feelings that come along with such a lifestyle change. Later in that same interview, Gwyneth Paltrow spoke more about why that was such a focus for the former pair, saying:
My kids are great. They’re grounded and grateful and funny. But [Chris Martin] and I both really did not want to have them experience the divorce as a trauma. We knew that it would be hard, of course, but we didn’t want them to ever feel in the middle, or that one of us was slagging off the other one. At that time, I did a very me thing, which was when I knew I wanted to get a divorce, I did this data collection of talking to adults who had been products of a broken home. Every single one of them said 'I didn’t care that my parents got divorced. That wasn’t it. But the fact that they wouldn’t speak to each other, that they couldn’t both sit at a dinner table for my birthday…' They said that was the most awful thing. You could see they held it with so much hurt and anger. I was like, 'That’s what I’m never going to do.' And we really didn’t.
Talk about a mature perspective. Despite any feeling they had about each other, it sounds like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin made sure their kids had a loving family unit. We’ve seen other celebrities like Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green similarly co-parent through their break-ups, in addition to fans who might have been inspired to put their own kids first.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Politician actress helped bring popular phrases into the pop culture lexicon. As one can see from the formation of Goop and Paltrow’s reitrement from acting, she’s not afraid to blaze her own path.
It’s currently unclear when she’ll return to the big screen, although some fans want to see Paltrow back in the MCU as Pepper Potts. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
