When Gwyneth Paltrow is criticized, she usually doubles-down. Like, she can’t even believe that the peasantry has the audacity to question her about ANYTHING, so she goes overboard in justifying or explaining herself. But not this time. Gwyneth has literally done the least amount of work involved with the Food Bank Challenge or the SNAP Challenge or whatever we’re calling it. She proudly posted a photo of what $29 worth of food stamps would get you at the grocery store (so many limes!) and… that was it. She posted that photo on April 9th. She abandoned the challenge within days (if not hours). She went out to lunch with friends over the weekend, and now People reports that Gwyneth and her boyfriend went out for a romantic dinner of veal tongue and rabbit legs (?????).
Gwyneth Paltrow and producer Brad Falchuk took their romance tableside on Tuesday. The actress, 42, and the Glee co-creator, 44, dined at the L.A. restaurant Animal, which featured a barbecue-themed menu on Tuesday of pig ears, veal tongue and fried rabbit legs.
“They were sitting together, very cozy and romantic,” says the observer at the eatery. “He was totally rapt by everything she was saying. They were totally on a date.”
The dinner followed Paltrow’s announcement on April 9 that she had accepted the Food Bank for New York City challenge to bring attention to the struggles faced by families that live on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, which Congress has slashed twice during the past 18 months. It’s unclear whether Paltrow is still participating in the campaign, which involves living off a $29 food-stamp budget for a week, or $1.38 per meal.
It’s not “unclear”. Gwyneth is not doing the challenge, if she ever was. And that truly surprises me – I figured Gwyneth would devote a Goop-post to her “challenge” and tell us all how she managed to make some lovely lime-soaked rice (or something) and it was amazing and obviously that means she’s so much better at all of this than the (fat) peasants. Instead, she gave up and just phoned it in. “Darling, just take a photo of some limes, I’m going to lunch with my lover.”
After I wrote that ^^ Page Six published their version of the same story, only they got Goop’s rep to say: “She already finished the challenge last week but only got around to posting the photo of the groceries on [Thursday].” So, basically, it’s what I said – Gwyneth only posted a photo of what she thought $29 worth of food looked like and then went on with her life. Page Six also noted that at this fancy BBQ event, it didn’t even seem like Gwyneth ate anything, despite the fact that she likely spent $85 just to attend.
Meanwhile, Gwyneth got HEAPS of criticism for even deigning to pay lip service to this challenge. The NY Post had a scathing essay about Gwyneth pretending to be poor, like she’s Marie Antoinette. Even Time Magazine called it “poverty tourism” and declared the whole Gooptastrophe to be “gross.”
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Yuck. Goop’s an a-hole.
And her ‘lover’ gives me the creeps. He is kind of vacant looking.
He’s like a creepy Zach Braff
lol!
“Veal tongue and pig ears” Gross
Veal tongue and pigs ears, would certainly be a way to keep me skinny!!!! Yuck!
I love that dress she has on in the first picture!
If you cook it properly and not bland, it’s delicious!
I have eaten that a few times since my grandmother grew up working-class and you don’t waste meat. Although pig brains are something that I rather not eat anymore, I liked it as a kid but lost the taste for it.
It’s interesting how food that used to be considered ‘waste’ was cheap and now it’s posh food.
That reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote:
Genuan cooking, like the best cooking everywhere in the multiverse, has been evolved by people who had to make desperate use of ingredients their masters didn’t want. No-one would even try a bird’s nest unless they had to. Only hunger would make a man taste his first alligator. No-one would eat a shark’s fin if they were allowed to eat the rest of the shark.
i’ve eaten pig ears, but not veal tongue.
I know. As a vegetarian, the very idea of a restaurant named “Animal” makes my stomach churn.
Yep, as a vegetarian myself, I can’t stand the poseurs here in LA who claim to be all organic, vegan when it’s convenient, farm-to-table to get attention blah blah blah, then they go eat at trendy places like Animal.
It’s in my neighborhood, and everytime I walk by, makes me want to vomit.
GOOP will eat fried pig ears, yet wouldn’t allow her kids hot dogs? So hypocritical, she’s just insufferable, but at least everyone knows it now.
I’d rather eat the 7 limes.
*sits next to burnsie.
I don’t care about Goop much but rabbit is delicious.
e: I like tongue too but it’s more of an acquired taste.
I like both! A lot of rabbit gets eaten in the rural area where I live. I casserole it in a mustard-y gravy.
I love rabbit and grew up eating it.
I liked rabbit when I was a kid too. We never ate it much because my dad had to catch so many when he was little or they’d have no food at all.
She sucks. I’m glad this issue got some much needed press, but she isn’t a spokesperson for anything other than 70’s twat fur and colon clenses. I wish she would embrace her elitism and stop trying to be everything to every woman.
Right? totally agree.
She really is Marie Antoinette. Goop should read Hunger Hurts (http://agirlcalledjack.com/2012/07/30/hunger-hurts) and feel the shame.
You know if I had to cast Marie Antoinette for a movie, Goop would be a good choice.
Honestly, who cares? She lives in a self-created under- the -dome- world and there she should stay. But instead she’s preaching her so called lifestyle, superfilcial, needless and boring.
Isn’t she an actress? Why not longing for demanding roles?
Way to stick with it, Gwennie!!!!!!! Maybe the point she was trying to make to the poor was, find a rich boyfriend and let them pay for your dinner of veal tongues! Why wouldn’t any peasant just find a rich boyfriend/girlfriend…..how silly of the poor!
‘Poverty tourism’ ? This is an actual thing for the elite? Oh SICK. Gross.
I was going to say the same thing. Yes, sick. How depressing.
Please for the love of God do we have to use the word ‘lover’? That sounds so dumb. Just say boyfriend.
Darling, don’t you know? Boyfriends are for plebeians, for the great unwashed. Gwyneth’s cosmic and gluten-free soul connection to her lover is far too divine to be tainted by a word so peasanty as “boyfriend”
I take lover as someone you are not in a committed relationship whereas boyfriend is more of a committment (not much more).
HA! “Lover” will always remind me of the hilarious SNL sketch with Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch in the hot tub…”LOVE-AHHHH!!!”.
OH my god bahaha. Would anyone like some lamb shakes?
Yeah sure she’s already done. We’d have heard EVERY detail. Instead she got a huge round of headlines for taking a photo of some limes. Bravo.
If someone is going to do that challenge and announces it, they need to DO IT. Do it and learn from it and try to help others learn as well, and then donate to their local food bank and be thankful for everything they have.
The restaurant sounds kind of vulgar. Like a game hunter’s dream. I wonder if they have signs up that say, “Vegetarian=Old Indian word for bad hunter.”
These “live on food stamps” so you can understand poverty activities are not a good idea. Most of the people doing it don’t even understand what poverty really is. So they live off $29 per week for food. Being poor is more than just depending on food stamps. They do the one thing while living in a mansion, driving a luxury car and going about their otherwise privileged lives. Living in poverty is horrid all around from living standards. to lack of education and all it includes.
I am sure the people have their hearts in the right place, but they are basically clueless. It is better to make contributions to others and not this type of activity. And Paltrow really has no idea, especially from that photo of the food. And just because you don’t eat the expensive food does not mean anything. She is still going to the fancy restaurants and interacting with the rich and famous. It is not living in poverty. She just does not get it.
Exactly, jen2! Living in poverty is constant, soul-sucking stress. There is no break from it and sometimes no end in sight. Even if Gwyneth Paltrow did live on $29 of food in a cardboard box outside for any more than a day, she has the immense privilege of being able to leave it whenever she wants, and no one looks past her as if she’s invisible or just garbage.
The documentary “Food Stamped” was about a couple who lived for a week on food stamps, but tried to eat a well-balanced, nutritionally complete diet. For part of the documentary, they interviewed members of Congress who had done the challenge, too, and the politicians all admitted that they were constantly hungry, distracted and sometimes unable to fully concentrate due to their hunger, always thinking and worrying about their next meal. THAT I found extremely interesting because they have some influence over these programs, and even though they weren’t truly living the entire life of someone using food stamps, or SNAP, they experienced some of the aspects of food insecurity that many people deal with.
Reminds me of when Hiddleston did the £1 day Unicef challenge, even die-hard fans criticised it.
You are right. But, as much as there is to justifiably criticize here, part of me wonders if this isn’t a net positive. Especially because of all the criticism she’s gotten. This has meant a lot of press on the subject reaching audiences who wouldn’t have had the same exposure otherwise.
I’m not trying to give her credit for that – you can say it happened in spite of her. I just wonder in a macro sense if this whole episode hasn’t been good for illuminating the real difficulty with SNAP benefits.
Raising awareness through challenges like this can be a positive, but if awareness never converts into action, what’s the point? I thought the ice bucket challenge was kind of stupid, but at the end of the day there was a lot of money raised for ALS research. What do we have to show for years of celebrities and bloggers and politicians and everyday citizens taking these food stamp/SNAP challenges? More and more cuts in federal funding. So what is it really good for? (And I absolutely agree that a week of eating on $29 can never capture the true experience of living in poverty.)
jen2, I agree! I’m on foodstamps, and I find all of this nonsense patronizing and insulting. While the intentions may be good, people still don’t get it.
The age old philosophical question: if your millionaire boyfriend pays for an $85 dinner you don’t eat, are you still ethically pretending to be on food stamps?
Thinking of designing a line of Poverty tourism postcards/sweatshirts/keychains….the mind boggles. Maybe if I jump right on it, I can make a buck or two before this rich people fad blows over. #teamhoipolloi
No fan of GOOP but if you are being called gross for even starting the challenge why continue? And now being criticized for stopping?
Because if your intentions are good then you start the challenge properly and you don’t merely end it because of criticism. The woman was buying limes and cilantro as if she just bought the first things that popped into her head and didn’t think about creating meals or ensuring she was mostly able to fully eat for a week.
This was fame whoring and this is why she’s rightfully mocked and insulted.
I’m not usually squeamish, but the description of that dinner made me feel queasy.
Oh, yeah, Goop’s a douche.
It sounds like a gluttonous Henry Viii feast.
Or a kid’s nightmare punishment.
Was her dress attacked by vacuum cups?
Yep, Goopy is by universal appraisal, one hell of a loathesome creature.
And this is why she’s hated.
Good job Gwyn. I was mostly indifferent to you but taking on something like this carelessly while real people are starving and struggling? Firmly on the hate side now. She’s repulsive.
Isn’t the whole point of the SNAP challenge “poverty tourism?” You know, if you actually do it? I really do think it’s a good exercise for everyone to try at some point, but most people do it for a month, not a week (or less). I don’t fault her for trying it, I fault her for abandoning it. If anyone wants to read about someone giving it a real go, check out Budget Bytes. She did a whole series of posts on it last September, and it’s pretty enlightening (and includes some good recipes!): http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/09/snap-challenge-week-1-summary/
I thought of gwennie yesterday when my grocery store had limes on sale 4 for $1. Lol.
Ha! You say that like she would ever even consider buying “clearance” limes.
So when she did the road trip through Spain with Mario, she refused to eat any ham or pork. I read her new boyfriend/lover’s family is very snotty in their own right and Jewish and now Goop is going to full on convert so she is accepted by said lovers mom.
For Easter, there was a photo posted that she got two bunnies as pets for the kids so I’m guessing that is why she passed on the rabbit on the menu.
I like that she tried. I like any mammothly rich person who actually tries to experience what it must be like to live on the bare minimum as millions of other Americans do. Maybe I’m just really naïve, but I believe solving some of our problems here in the U.S. begins with empathy. We have serious lack of empathy right now. Btw, I live in a city and lemme tell ya, $29 will get you foodstuffs that last maybe 3 days, tops.
I sorta agree. Gwyneth is tone deaf, but I don’t think she is heartless. She grew up privileged and therefore can never know what it is like to live in poverty. But if she didn’t care AT ALL, she wouldn’t have bothered with trying to bring it to light.
My problem with criticizing the rich and famous for speaking out on issues (like when ppl came down on Patricia Arquette like a ton of bricks for speaking out on wage inequality at the Oscars) is that the rich and famous are about the only ones with a real voice. Lobbying groups have real voices. The average poor person in America has NO voice. They’re invisible to politicians and to regular Americans. I think it’s more shameful when the rich and famous DON’T speak out on issues. The way GP did it is probably a misfire. But the way people have landed on her, I doubt she’ll put herself out there again.
Well said, and I so agree.
I get that some people dislike her so much it doesn’t matter what she does or doesn’t do. And the spirit of charity, shall we say, doesn’t seem as natural to her as to other actors, but she’s trying, she’s getting in there. At least she’s not parked in some other country criticizing policies here while doing nothing.
I, too, agree with everything said here.
I agree. People just love to pile on Gwyneth. She just seems human to me. She makes mistakes but she is also making an effort. It makes me tired just reading all of the negative energy expended in hating her. Don’t people have better things to do than to hate a celebrity so much?? I’d rather use my energy on my own life, I love gossip but I don’t want to waste me emotions on it.
She spends way more than $29 on ONE meal. Can you imagine what she spends monthly on food? It’s so outrageous, she wouldn’t dare publicize it. This “challenge” is offensive to hard working women.
Boycott GOOP. #NotOneClick
Any Pulp fans here? Anyone want to start a chorus of “Common People?”
Ha!
it is soooo revealing. everyone that rich could easily fake it. im not recommending that, just saying it reveals how little she acutally cares.
other actresses would have posted pics online, wrote sad blog posts and secretly ate luxury food at home. Goop does not.
Oh, Gwyneth… You may as well have flipped off the camera and added the caption “Sure sucks to be them” when you posted that pic of $29 worth of food. This isnt surprising, coming from the woman who said she could never pretend to be someone who earns $25K/year. Its a good thing she isnt in a profession that requires immersing herself in other people’s lifestyles, to portray complex characters outside her own comfort zone- oh, wait…
The GOOP website has a new post about the challenge. Gwyneth admits that she quit after four days and the whole thing was really difficult. BTW, she did this because of the NYC food bank which she’s been donating to for years. She helped get tons of press for the issue of hunger/poverty and I don’t quite understand why everyone’s so pissed off.
Good for her!
Edit: I know you can’t read my tone on here, but that was genuine, not sarcastic. I think “it’s really difficult” is a good message to come out of this, and she’s received so much criticism along the lines of “you’re so rich, why don’t you donate the money instead” that her history of donation is good to hear.
Yet here’s the thing her PR person told Page six that she finished the challenge last week so between last Thursday when she posted the picture why did she not make any comment? Why did she wait a week until after she was called out twice by the media did she decide to make a fallow up statement?
The new post smells like a PR move to save face from all the bad press she got. We already know she quit the challenge by the pictures of her at restaurants so she not telling us something we don’t already know.
Go for her if she donates but Goop has put more time and energy in her cleaning by posting tweets, newsletters, posting recipes and giving updates on her progress then she did with this Food Stamp challenge. So small claps all around for her posting a picture.
After all of this, it seems like it’s a clean-up PR statement. Why make that statement now when she could have been forthright about it at the time of her posting that photo, because as her rep said that photo was posted only after she finished the challenge.
She could have admitted imperfection at the time of posting and said, “Look, what I bought was unrealistic. It lasted me only four days. I guess I didn’t think this through.”
Instead, she made it look like she was committed to the challenge until photos came out of her dining out. Then her rep had to do some clean-up. Anyhoo, that’s my gist of what happened.
Exactly. There’s evidence she didn’t last a week so now her PR has to come out with a story.
I’ve read that what Goop bought for a week was essentially a 1,000 calories per day diet, which is about half the recommended daily calories intake for a woman.
So it seems to me as if her purchase was based upon the mentality of a skinny-minnie who knew she’d be going out to several nice restaurants the following week and so went on a very strict diet the previous week.
Her purchase does not seem to be based upon serious and realistic thinking about what a $29 per week food allowance would be week after week. There seems to be no consideration for the cost of food per amount bought and for it to last reasonably on a weekly basis. Rather than going on a ‘poverty tour,’ it looks like all she did was read some brochures and then decided not to go at all.
Cut this poor woman a break. Some people are just privileged. She doesn’t know anything else and we should not hate on her for that. To be honest, a lot of hate seems to stem from some kind of envy or jealousy. Yeah, you had to work two jobs to get through college. So what?? It isn’t her fault she was born into a naturally advantaged position in life. Deal with it and try to understand someone else’s POV in life and focus on your own accomplishments.
Yes, rich and privileged people should be allowed to refrain from understanding “someone else’s POV in life,” because for them to do otherwise would be asking too much from them. They were born rich, so the mental flexibility required to have empathy for those ‘lower’ than them shouldn’t be expected, as it wouldn’t be part of their “natural advantaged position in life.”
(Btw, I think you were being sarcastic, and so was I.)
I think you bet on the wrong horse with that one Anne, Me’s being serious. Somebody has to cry for the wealthy and ignorant.
I agree with me too. I am not rich and I would have a really hard time even beginning to understand what being really poor is like. For instance, I doubt that many of the people criticizing Gwyneth here would be able to empathize with a homeless person or illegal migrant worker or dishwasher. It’s not realistic to expect anybody to understand what it is to live in someone else’s shoes until they actually have to live it. Until all the high horse commenters on here are able to know exactly how it feels to be homeless I think they should concentrate on their own backyards and just how much charity work they themselves are doing.
I know this is Celebitchy and most hate Gwyneth P. But read the comments from the Time Magazine article. For example to the author of the article: “Why are people acting as if they have never heard of this before and it is some sort of stunt? It is a tool for raising awareness. We all understood it when Corey Booker among others did it a couple of years ago. Shame on you Darlena Cunha and everyone else who is piling on. Paltrow may be far out of touch with average people but at least her heart is in the right place.”
@Me Too: Goopy?…is that you?…(LOL!).
Good Lord…hilarious how Goopy has to run to that asshole of a PR guy Stephen Huvane to smooth over all the bad press. Vanity Fair wrote an “in defense of Goop” article that triggered my gag reflex. Holy Moly, Goopy sure is shelling out a shit ton of cash to pay for all of those writers on all those blogs.