'Love at first sight': Gwyneth Paltrow revisits Brad Pitt romance on podcast

Gwyneth Paltrow sat down with Benny Blanco, Lil Dicky and Kristin Batalucco on their podcast Friends Keep Secrets for a wide-ranging conversation that opened with her early-90s romance with Brad Pitt before moving on to her Goop empire, raising her children in the spotlight and a string of lighter moments.

Paltrow revisited her relationship with Pitt, whom she met on the set of Se7en when she was around 22 and he was 31 and already a major star. Recalling their first meeting, Paltrow said, “I met him on set and as we had like kind of a love at first sight thing. It was pretty awesome. It was really fun.”

The pair began dating in 1994, got engaged in 1996 and split in June 1997. Reflecting on that period, Paltrow said, “I was just young, and we were working all over different parts of the world,” adding that being with “this beautiful movie star” made the whole experience feel larger than life.

The breakup was difficult for Paltrow, while the level of public attention added another dimension to the experience. “I think the press aspect and all that makes it feel larger than life in a way,” she said. “You have to carry this faux cultural importance piece, this extra burden and this extra shame that it didn't work out.”

Paltrow said there was no bad blood between them today, describing Pitt as “a great guy” and adding that they remained friends.

She had spoken about the split before. During a 2023 appearance on Call Her Daddy, Paltrow said she called off the engagement because she was not ready to marry, while Pitt, nine years older, already knew what he wanted.

A separate excerpt from Amy Odell's biography Gwyneth: The Biography, reported earlier, offered a similar account, quoting Paltrow as saying she “wasn't ready, and he was too good for me.”

The book, based on more than 220 interviews, also detailed her turbulent relationship with Ben Affleck and a falling-out with Madonna, alongside Goop-era beauty routines such as a so-called 10-minute facelift using sugar threads.

Apple’s name and raising her children

Asked about her daughter Apple’s name, Paltrow recalled how the idea came from her then-husband, Chris Martin. “Her dad said, if it's a girl, I think her name should be Apple,” she said, adding that it “conjured such a lovely picture” in her mind.

The name's eventual reception caught her off guard. “I didn't think it was going to be a thing. But then it was like this massive international news story.”

On raising Apple and Moses under constant public attention, Paltrow said her approach centred on instilling “good values, hard work, respect and kindness”, giving them a strong enough sense of self to withstand outside opinion.

Paltrow also revisited the phrase that became a cultural punchline after her 2014 split from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. She said the term came from the couple’s therapist as they worked out “how do you break up without destroying everything” while remaining a family despite no longer being a couple.

Life under scrutiny

Years of public attention had also shaped Paltrow’s understanding of how to deal with outside opinion.

“You have to learn to detach your self-worth from what strangers think of you,” she said. “If you internalise praise, you're going to internalise the criticism, so you just have to step back from both.”

The conversation also drifted into lighter territory, with Paltrow contrasting dining culture in the two cities where she divided her time. “In New York, restaurant culture is the blood in the veins of the city,” she said, while Los Angeles dining leaned more on “the mood, the outdoor space and the vibe.”

From recommendations to Goop

Paltrow traced Goop’s origins back to 2008, when her frequent work travel left her without an easy way to find recommendations.

“I would get to these amazing places, and I would be like, where do I go? Where's the cool restaurant? Where's the secret boutique?” she said, adding that at the time, “there was no internet aggregation of recommendations.”

Across the hour-long conversation, Paltrow moved between candour and comedy, looking back at her relationship with Pitt, the public pressure surrounding their breakup, her approach to parenting and the evolution of Goop.

The conversation offered a glimpse of the different chapters of Paltrow’s public life, from a highly scrutinised Hollywood romance to the creation of a wellness brand and the challenges of raising children in the public eye.