The actress came up with regimens and products to feel better, which Stephen Powis of the UK’s National Health Service criticized: “We need to take COVID seriously and apply serious science.”
Gwyneth Paltrow played patient zero on Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 viral thriller that, in a way, foreshadowed aspects of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. But here’s a story that no one foresaw: Paltrow revealed in a post on the Goop blog that she battled the coronavirus “in the beginning” and that it left her with “a little long-tail fatigue and brain fog”.
Although there were rumors that Paltrow avoided confirming his illness due to Contagion comparisons, she says The Hollywood Reporter this is not true. “I understood so early that there were no COVID tests available,” she said THR of the disease, which she said she probably contracted on a trip to Paris. “We couldn’t even do the test for a long time, and when we were able to do the antibody tests and all that, there were much more serious and important things going on in the world. I really didn’t feel the need to bring it up, but it was interesting. “
When she posted the news on Goop, it was accompanied by a list of products that Paltrow promoted as the key to feeling better, including a predominantly ketone and herbal diet “but flexible” and without sugar or alcohol along with treatments for infrared sauna. She praised functional medicine practitioner Dr. Will Cole and his book Intuitive Fasting, Madge’s Vegan daikon kimchi, Seedlip’s line of non-alcoholic cocktails and vitamin D3 supplements. “At goop, we always like to talk about the body’s ability to heal itself when you give it the right conditions to do that,” Paltrow wrote.
But his recommendations caught the eye of Stephen Powis, the national medical director of the National Health Service in England, who says his welfare proposals “really are not the solutions we recommend”. He added: “We need to take COVID a long time seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty to take care of that.”
Asked whether criticisms such as Powis’s reach Paltrow, she said: “Sometimes, but usually I always think it’s for your own amplification. We really shouldn’t say that we never make mistakes because of course we did in the past, but we are very honest and we are careful with what we say. We always feel that we understand why so much of it [criticism] it becomes a click bait for people. “
On how she is feeling now, during an interview to support her partnership as the global face of the Xeomin anti-wrinkle injection line, Paltrow said she is feeling good and “getting there”.
“I also think that nine months in quarantine eating pasta, cake and alcohol seven days a week probably didn’t help. So I have a great clean eating routine and then I abstained for a few months now, and it always helps a lot with everything that is happening in the body. “
A version of this story first appeared in the March 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.