Paltrow: Yeah I Knew That Phrase Was a Bit Weird

Actress explains origin of 'conscious uncoupling'
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 6, 2020 2:49 PM CDT
Paltrow: Yeah I Knew That Phrase Was a Bit Weird
A 2019 photo of Gwyneth Paltrow.   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, file)

Gwyneth Paltrow is in the celeb headlines on two fronts: She interviews friend Cameron Diaz, who talks about her retirement from acting, and she writes an essay in British Vogue about her famous, or maybe infamous, use of the phrase "conscious uncoupling." The BBC has the Diaz details, in which she tells Paltrow that the decision to stop acting in 2014 has given her "peace in my soul." She adds: "It's a strange thing to say, I know a lot of people won't understand it, I know you understand it, but it's so intense to work at that level and be that public and put yourself out there." Diaz, who isn't ruling out a possible return to acting someday, had her first child, Raddix, in 2019 with husband Benji Madden of the group Good Charlotte.

As for "conscious uncoupling," Paltrow reveals in her essay that it was introduced to her and then husband Chris Martin by their therapist. "Frankly, the term sounded a bit full of itself, painfully progressive and hard to swallow," she writes. "I was intrigued, less by the phrase, but by the sentiment. Was there a world where we could break up and not lose everything?" Six years later, Paltrow still recalls the "mockery" that ensued, but she writes that "conscious uncoupling/separation/divorce, whatever you want to call it, has now permeated the break-up culture." These days, people frequently ask her how to achieve it, and she writes that the phrase means different things to different couples. (More Cameron Diaz stories.)

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