Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals the Backlash from Her Infamous Phrase "Conscious Uncoupling" Was "Brutal"
When Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin split in 2014, the Goop founder set out to redefine divorce, and, in the process, she garnered negative reactions from even her most loyal followers.
The infamous phrase "conscious uncoupling" has been endlessly mocked in the media, and Paltrow admits the backlash she received was "brutal." While speaking with Dax Shepard for his podcast Armchair Expert, the actress reveals how she experienced more than one heartbreak during her separation.
"I was in a lot of pain. It was so difficult. It felt like such a failure to me. It was so hard and I was so worried about my kids," Paltrow explained. "Then there was this whole other layer of the world turning on us about saying, essentially, we just want to be nice to each other and stay a family."
She added: “It was brutal. I already felt like I had no skin on.”
Looking back, Gwyneth believes that the term may have been "too early in the culture" and "triggered a lot of people who were the sons and daughters of acrimonious divorces, or people in the middle of acrimonious divorces."
Happy Birthday CAJM. This is a special one. We love you so much. #42
A post shared by Gwyneth Paltrow (@gwynethpaltrow) on Mar 2, 2019 at 10:45pm PST
On the other hand, GP didn't come from a world of divorce, so she found the phrase to be a "beautiful" way to describe a less than ideal outcome.
“The most common wound that I heard from children of divorce was, ‘My parents couldn’t be in the same room and couldn’t be friends. It took three years, it took 18 years, it took — God forbid — the death of a close family member for them to sit at the same table,'" she said.
“I just thought, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to circumvent that and go directly to the point where we’re friends and we remember what we loved about each other, and constantly acknowledge that we created these incredible human beings together.'”
RELATED: Gwyneth Paltrow Says She and Ex Chris Martin Were "Meant to Be Together and Have Our Kids"
Today, GP and Martin continue to reinvent what it means to be a modern family, as the pair take vacations and celebrate holidays together with their new significant others. And most recently, Gwyneth celebrated International Women's Day with both of her mother-in-laws.
A post shared by Gwyneth Paltrow (@gwynethpaltrow) on Mar 8, 2019 at 4:32pm PST
“Family structure can be reinvented and divorce doesn’t have to be devastating,” Paltrow told the Evening Standard back in January. “It doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship with somebody.”
