Gwyneth Paltrow: is her life a work of performance art?

How else do you explain the $15,000 vibrator, rectal ozone therapy and vaginal steaming? Perhaps the actor is giving her greatest performance yet …

Ripping to shreds Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop gift list has been a media preoccupation for years now, to the point that the website even titles it, “The ridiculous but awesome gift guide”. Still, even those not driven by well-documented animus towards Paltrow (there should be a healing crystal for this, it’s so intense) have objected to the $15,000 vibrator sheathed in 24-carat gold. I’ve spent ages down a rabbit hole, trying to work out what kind of person might require a gold vibrator, and the closest thing I can come up with is someone whose kink is being obscenely rich. But no way is that anyone’s kink.

Others have objected to the idiosyncrasies: a gong-fascination that includes not just a $2,000 gong, but also gong workshops with a personal gong trainer. A nearly $400 parmesan looks like a standard out-of-touch slap in the face to pauperised normies everywhere. The most expensive gift, nearly $40,000 for a single night at a Fijian eco resort, hit all the buttons of Great Gatsby profligacy and a high net worth culture so untethered to state or nation that place becomes backdrop, locals mere extras. It’s Marie Antoinette’s mock village rebooted: the eco resort.