Gwyneth Paltrow’s Vanity Fair cover interview was massive. As I said in my coverage, it gave me such nostalgia for those old-school interviews where actual movie stars actually gossiped and talked about real stuff. All of which to say, Gwyneth talked about so many different topics, it was difficult to cull through the interview to get all of the good parts. I wanted to highlight what Gwyneth said about the Duchess of Sussex especially, and that was definitely one of the biggest headlines from the interview. But Gwyneth was also asked about that blind item which circulated last year about a guest at one of her homes – I wrongly thought this happened at Gwyneth’s Hamptons home, but apparently the original incident allegedly went down at Gwyneth’s Montecito home. The guest apparently had “Ozempic-induced diarrhea” and absolutely ruined Gwyneth’s guest room, then the guest left without saying anything and it was a big to-do in A-list gossip circles. Well, VF mentioned the story and this is how Gwyneth reacted:
As a host here, Paltrow is boundaried. A friend gifted her with a cheeky pillow embroidered with her well-known dinner party policy: “Please Leave By 9.” After a 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. start, she says guests will be “enthralled” in conversation before realizing, “Oh my God, hurry, it’s 8:49! We’ve got to get to the end of this.” I broach a piece of gossip that somehow became very public, when a socialite houseguest supposedly soiled a room in one of her properties, possibly the one in which we sit. “I understand,” a pained Paltrow says, “and I also, like, am just not going to…” she trails off with an existential cringe, saying nothing more but, I note, not leaping to denying it.
Given how openly she discussed everything from intimacy coordinators to exes, it feels notable that she just cringes and refuses to say anything about the story. So… a confirmation that it happened? A confirmation that something happened, surely. It’s also notable that no one has rushed in to defend Derek Blasberg in the past ten months – his name was “confirmed” by various outlets as the guest-room-sh-tter. Given Blasberg’s many A-list connections, it’s weird that this story was just allowed to sit out there for months and months, without anyone stepping in to dispute it or stand up for him in any way.
As I was looking into this to see if there was anything I missed, I saw this DeuxMoi story from last August, in which their sources confirmed that it was Blasberg but: “While some sources were quick to point fingers at trendy weight-loss meds, our sources say that wasn’t the culprit. The bigger issue seems to be Derek’s alleged attempt to either pay off the cleaning staff or just expect them to silently clean up the mess. Needless to say, Gwyneth was not amused.” Their sources also say that Gwyneth was willing to forgive and forget, but Blasberg did some other things she didn’t appreciate (like putting her daughter Apple all over his socials) and so the friendship is basically over.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of VF.
