Amy Odell (3:46)

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Lauren Sherman (3:48)

Lauren, I'm so excited for you to be here. So the second book comes out today. Congrats. Thank you. How are you feeling?

Amy Odell (3:58)

Good. I think all the feelings that one feels when one publishes a book, which is like you've worked really hard and you're excited to get it out. And it's also kind of nerve wracking.

Lauren Sherman (4:11)

Yeah. Is it different from the first time around? Did the Anna book come out during COVID like peak Covid, or was it prior?

Amy Odell (4:18)

It was a little bit after peak Covid. I mean, I do recall doing in person interviews, so we certainly weren't in lockdown. But it was 2022, spring of 2022. The news peg was the Met Gala. So about three years ago. Exactly. Yeah.

Lauren Sherman (4:35)

So much has changed.

Amy Odell (4:37)

It's crazy. So much has changed in the media now. When you promote a book, you want to be on a podcast. And three years ago you wanted to be on Good Morning America.

Lauren Sherman (4:46)

It's, yeah, it's funny when we were, and you were kind enough when Chantal and I did our Victoria's Secret book to do an interview with us, but they were obsessed with morning shows and npr. And I was like, guys, I don't, maybe that will help. But I think book talk is the place to be. And you know, it's just a lot.

Amy Odell (5:06)

Has changed in the media landscape. I mean, substacks are also important. So anyway, it's, I was reflecting on that today as I was doing all the, the interviews that I'm very lucky to get to do. And it just, it has changed so much.

Lauren Sherman (5:17)

Well, I figured today then Tuesday is our like news of the weekday. And since one of your expertise. 1. One of your subject expertises. I don't know if that's how you would say it is Anna Wintour, and she's been in news of late. I thought we'd start with a little Anna succession, and then we can transition into Gwyneth Paltrow and the business and the life of Gwyneth Paltrow, which you have covered so brilliantly in your new book, the biography.

Amy Odell (5:47)

Thank you.

Lauren Sherman (5:48)

But let's talk a little bit about Anna. So Anna's succession. A couple weeks back, they said that Anna is going to. They created a new position that is like head of editorial content in American Vogue. The succession, whether I don't know if this person will be her successor for the bigger job or if this person will just be a sort of person that a regional manager type, but we don't know yet. But there have been some names that have sort of popped up recently, including someone who I didn't expect, Eva Chen, who has a really big job at Meta, but who seems to be in the mix. And then the other person that came out of my Eva Chen reporting was Amy Astley, her old boss from the original editor of Teen Vogue, who's now the editor of Architectural Digest, who was, you know, 15 years ago thought of as being like, the chosen one. Yeah. For Anna. But now I. I'm a little surprised. But what have you been hearing and. And what do you think of the way Conde Nast is managing this whole succession thing?

Amy Odell (6:57)

I heard Selby Drummond. Have you heard her?

Lauren Sherman (7:01)

People have suggested her to me, which I think is really smart. I like her a lot.

Amy Odell (7:06)

Yeah. So that could make sense. I don't. So I don't know. Eva Chen, as you said, has a big job at Meta, very influential. I think she has more influence in that job than she would doing anything at Conde Nast, and I would imagine she's well compensated. And I don't know what head of editorial content pays for Vogue, but I would have a hard time imagining it would be similar in size to her, to her pay package, to be quite honest with you. And I think. I think she's brilliant and she's done a brilliant job where she is. So I don't know how you make head of editorial content enticing to someone like Eva Judd. However, she would be brilliant when it comes to running the Met Gala, for sure.

Lauren Sherman (7:50)

That's exactly what I wrote last week, was that I always pegged that she would be the Met Gala person. There's no way they'll ever match her compensation. At Meta, I think there is something to be said of that. She is still extremely close with Anna and does a lot of work with her and has not been at Conde Nast since it's sort of the last 10 years when it really. Things got really tough there. And so I'm sure there's still something that says it's Vogue and if they have some sort of deal or understanding that eventually she will take over the whole thing. And this is a transitional period. I could see it being attractive, but I think like Selby is such a great idea. I think there's a, there's a generation of Vogue people. Selby Drummond, Ricky Du Soleil, Chloe Mal, who works there. And a lot of people I think are. Would really love Nicole Phelps who are all sort of very capable and have the energy and the connections to do something like this. So it's interesting. The Amy thing is fascinating to me and you know, she's done a really good job with Architectural Digest, I think when she went in. It's funny when you look back and you covered this in, in your Anna biography, but the, the sort of Anna's failure at House and Garden and Vanity chair, as they called it, or House and Garment. Amy sort of took the model that Anna did back in the 80s and did it for AD. And now it's just like if you're a celebrity who wants to sell your house, you, you do Arc Digest or, you know, and I think the videos are really smart. They have a professional tier that people pay for that no other Conde Nast publication has. I think in that way she, she's been a good business person and so maybe that is the answer. It's just that I don't want to be ageist. She's 20 years younger than Anna. But, but, but it wouldn't be. It's not, you know, it's. It's a, maybe a decade solution. It's not like thinking of who's going to be running this thing for the next 40 years like Anna has. But maybe that's fine.

Amy Odell (10:11)

Maybe you don't want someone running it for 40 years. Yeah. Because whenever I post about Anna, quite often the comments I get are it's time for her to go. So yeah, maybe you don't want someone for 40 years and editors are turning over faster anyway. These days Amy Astley feels like of that era, that Devil Wears Prada era. So I think for that reason, to me, I mean, I don't really know. I haven't, I haven't been doing a lot of reporting Because I've been working on Gwyneth, but I just. I don't know. Like, is Amy Astley. If she's doing a great job at Architectural Digest, maybe Kanass would like to keep her there and doing her thing there, if that's working and it's profitable and put someone else who's more focused on fashion now in the Vogue job.

Lauren Sherman (11:02)

Yeah, yeah, it's a. It's a really good point and it's funny. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is what you. You've profiled these two women who are so important to so many different industries, entertainment, fashion, and just shaping culture. But one of the fun things about reading your book was I had totally forgot about the GOOP magazine and that it was done. It was done in collaboration with Conde Nast. And I thought the reporting on the Goop magazine in particular was so fascinating, and I just can't believe they even did it. Had you forgotten about. I just had totally forgotten about it.

Amy Odell (11:45)

I don't know if I forgot, but it was. It was so fun to report on that because it was Anna and Gwyneth colliding. And it gave me a lot of respect. I always had respect for Anna. It gave me even more respect when I learned that she was one of the people who said, we have to be able to fact check this magazine. Because the GOOP team and Gwyneth thought that they could take some of the articles they had published on their website, which they didn't fact check, which had inaccurate health claims in them, and put them in the magazine. And Conde Nast has seasoned fact checkers who have done this their whole careers, and editors who have worked with fact checkers their whole careers. And they were kind of like, well, what do you want us to do with, like, an article about a pet psychic? You know, like, do we just kind of go with this? Like, is it like, should we say that, like, lentils do this thing that, like, we can't find any studies that they do? Like, basically what would happen is GOOP would suggest an article and the Conde Nast researchers would try to substantiate and fact check it. And they would put one person told me, like, all these notes in it, like shouts and murmurs notes, like hilarious notes, and send it back. And, you know, GOOP wouldn't really like that. And there was kind of a power struggle, as I understand it, between Anna and Gwyneth. So it was very friendly at first. And I was fascinated to hear that Anna called goop, called goop, called Gwyneth Baby in meetings, and there was, like, a call.

Lauren Sherman (13:20)

So funny.

Amy Odell (13:21)

Weird, right?

Lauren Sherman (13:22)

Hey, baby.

Amy Odell (13:24)

Gwyneth was beyond the motion. Be like, hi, baby. And I guess there was a pantsuit editorial in one issue that Gwyneth or that Anna did not really like. And at some point, Gwyneth's reaction to this power struggle between, you know, old media and, like, her, her content and her team, she said something like, who's running this magazine, Anna or me? So that was very funny and fun to report on. But, yeah, the people at Kanant, who had a brush with GOOP magazine, sort of regard it with great humor now. But to their credit, they stood up for facts. That said, I did get the magazines. And the first issue, like, one of the opening stories is about crystals. And it's like, if you want to get energy vampires out of your life, get Amethyst. Sorry, I'm not an expert in crystals, so I don't remember which crystal. But they. So they did get this stuff out there. But ultimately, why would you launch a print magazine in 2017 or 2018? Gwyneth's team advised her not to do it. She's ambitious and likes doing lots of different things. It sounded glamorous and like a good thing to do. There's something enticing about Anna Winter saying, hey, come here. Let's work together. You know what I mean? So they did it, but, yeah, it didn't work. They couldn't sell it. They couldn't sell ads. So it wasn't a business success. Yeah. So that was something that GOOP did and Kanye said that did not work out.

Lauren Sherman (14:55)

It's funny, it says it's the weaknesses of Conde Nast of not being able to do that kind of work. Like, if she had gone to Hearst, they might have been able to manage it better.

Amy Odell (15:06)

I wonder. She did go to Hearst, as I reported in the book, or her team did when they were raising money, but Hearst said no. Do you remember reading. I don't know if you remember reading that.

Lauren Sherman (15:18)

I don't remember that.

Amy Odell (15:18)

Okay, so Hurst said no because. And a lot of company, a lot of investors said no because they didn't want to invest in a company that was going to take on inventory.

Lauren Sherman (15:30)

Interesting. I understand that.

Amy Odell (15:32)

Completely. Completely.

Lauren Sherman (15:33)

Especially in that era.

Amy Odell (15:35)

Exactly.

Lauren Sherman (15:35)

When it was like, no inventory. The inventory's bad. It still is, but I think it's managed a little bit better. Or, you know, we just go through phases of business. Oh, my God, there's so much to cover. Let's talk first about why did you choose her as A follow up to Anna in particular. I, I understand why you chose Anna, but why did you choose Gwyneth?

Amy Odell (16:00)

Well, love her or hate her, she has been a cultural influencer for 30 years now. I think there are very few people who have had cultural impact, very few people who have for that amount of time drawn or had sort of a magnetic attraction about them. And she's also very polarizing. And as you said, she has impacted a number of industries. Entertainment, fashion, beauty, wellness, perhaps most importantly of all. And I interviewed more than 220 people to write the book. People who worked with her at goop, people who worked with her on films, personal friends. Um, and what I found is that all the profiles that I had read about her over the years, they really barely scratched the surface of who she really is.

Lauren Sherman (16:52)

Yeah, I thought it was, it was clear that many people shared a lot of information with you, a lot of personal information about her, but also people who are really close to her maybe didn't go on the record with you. But I, you know, as a reporter, I was like, oh, what? That person clearly talked about. Talk directly to Amy. One of the things you said at the beginning was that there were people that you reached out to who she basically told, don't, don't talk to this reporter, which happens with any book. But do you think there were people that she also said it's okay because some of the people that you clearly spoke to are people who have a very close relationship with her still?

Amy Odell (17:34)

Yeah, she, she decided to, to have me talk to. This was all going through her different reps that she had over the course of me doing this over three years. So she put forward two people for me to speak to. One is Richard Lovett, the co chair of CAA Talent Agency.

Lauren Sherman (17:50)

Yes.

Amy Odell (17:50)

And the other is Janaba Parker, who is the chief counsel and chief people officer for goop. So those two people. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And then another source who I had said, like, oh, sure, happy to talk to you, like, run it by her pr. And I did. And then, and then they said they're not going to provide any more sources. So I don't know what to make of their strategy there. With Anna, it was different because she made access to her friends and colleagues easy. And so for this I had to dig. But I did talk to a lot of people who I don't think had ever really been asked about her before.

Lauren Sherman (18:26)

Well, it's, it's interesting to see the different approaches to press because the thing that I think Anna Wintour does very well and it's clear from how, how well your book is, is reported and, and how much information you had is that she understands that like not everything that's going to be written about her is going to be nice. And she, she really respects, she's a journalist. Like she is really respects journalism. And yeah, like I've in this, especially in the past two years of doing this job, like, I just feel like she has been really respectful of me and when I've written like some pretty harsh stuff about the company and her specifically and Gwyneth, I would say maybe a little less comfortable but still engages a lot and is constantly doing press, like to a point where I'm like, you need to not do this one too. You know, you need to. You already, you had a taffy article that Marissa Meltzer profiles you. Then you have something else in the New York Times Magazine and then you have the Goop Cruise and then you have this and then you have that and then you have that. And it's like Vanity Fair cover ink, whatever. It's just a constant. What, what, how do you see their diff? Two different approaches to press. And then with Gwyneth in particular, as you were reporting this book, she was like very out and about. What did you think about that?

Amy Odell (19:59)

I think you're right about Anna. I mean, Anna's father was a journalist himself, the very respected editor of the Evening Standard newspaper in London. And she grew up in the milieu of very talented and well known journalists. So I think your analysis there is spot on. And with Gwyneth, I don't know, I think she has a Hollywood, more of a Hollywood mentality about it. And you know, she's been treated. It's funny because when she gives access, she's really treated with kid loves. And then the rest of it, you know, a lot of it is critical and pointing out her various controversies and stuff like that. But she has used access as a way to control her press. I mean, someone told me, I remember specifically when I was working on the Anna book, they were like, oh well, she knows she's going to be written about. Like she accepts it. And I think with Hollywood actors, you know, let's think of Gwyneth's pedigree. I mean, she never really stopped acting, which is an interesting way to go about being the CEO of a company. But when you're an actor, people remove obstacles and problems from your life. You know, you go out for dinner, someone picks up the check. You want to take your friends on a bachelorette trip, a movie studio gives you guys, a plane. You're really just taken care of and pampered, and you don't really have to contend with problems in a normal way at all. When you're shooting a movie, people tiptoe around you and praise you and make you feel. Try to make you feel like a million bucks so that when you get in front of the camera, you give your very best. You know, millions of dollars are being spent on you giving your very best. So it's just a really specific way to kind of, you know, grow into adulthood. And she was an actress from, you know, she dropped out of college to go into this and was successful right away. So that's the mentality that she brought to goop. And I don't get the sense that she's ever really shed that mentality because executives told me that when she was running goop, you know, running a business, as your listeners will well know, is all about solving problems and contending with problems. And she was so thrown by them that she could become, one person told me, childishly unhappy about them.

Lauren Sherman (22:21)

Yeah. She, to me, has a mix of founder syndrome and celebrity syndrome.

Amy Odell (22:25)

Absolutely.

Lauren Sherman (22:26)

And the two things together. She's extremely smart and has good instincts and has the right ingredients to make that. That business could have been a real thing. And maybe someday that she'll still be able to sell it to somebody. Someone.

Amy Odell (22:40)

But maybe.

Lauren Sherman (22:43)

She got in her own way, in that way. I wanted to talk a bit about. I thought it was interesting. I really. Obviously, I love reading about the GOOP stuff, but having lived that, I loved reading about her childhood and high school and the Williamstown Theater Festival. And also, I just. I was. She was my. One of my, like, style icons. When I was in high school, something changed about. And it's funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. She does a lot of outfit selfies, which I find to solve her clothing lie. I guess that is why it's. It just, like, is really weird to me. And I'm like, I don't want Gwyneth to do outfit selfies.

Amy Odell (23:32)

Well, to your point about. To your point about all her press, I assume that that's to keep one. I think she. There's something about her that needs that. That's used to that, that desires that. You know, that's what people told me. But also, she just. She needs to drive awareness of GOOP constantly so that people go to the site to buy things there because they have really whittled down their content team. As I understand it, they had two rounds of layoffs in 2024, which I know you covered really well. Um, but they need to find a way to get people on the site. Like, isn't that the struggle that retailers have with their sites is just getting people to go there? So when GOOP was publishing a lot of content, they were driving people there all the time. So even if you're just there because you read about the Jada controversy, well, maybe you'll buy a sweater that you like. Maybe you'll buy a moisturizer.

Lauren Sherman (24:18)

Yeah.

Amy Odell (24:19)

So maybe that's Gwyneth's mentality is just that she has to stay out there so that people think about GOOP and think, maybe I'll go buy some GOOP stuff.

Lauren Sherman (24:29)

Did you, when reporting on those early days, did you hear anything? Because Carolyn Bessette Kennedy has been so much in the press as of late because of this Ryan Murphy show, which is interesting, given that her husband's relationship with Ryan Murphy. But did you hear anything about her? Like, because she was sort of a younger version of Carolyn Bessette in some ways, in terms of the way she looked and the. Her style and all of that in the 90s, did you come across any reporting connecting them in any way?

Amy Odell (25:02)

Yeah. So Gwyneth was a Calvin girl, and she. She came to the brand, I think, around the time of Flesh and Bone. And it may have been through Donovan Leach, who was modeling and did some Calvin work. And so. So they would kind of go into the Calvin showroom and pick out clothes. Calvin Klein loved dressing her because he was doing those slip dresses, those, like, very slinky slip dresses, the iconic ones that your listeners will know. And he wanted to see very thin bodies in those dresses. And he thought Gwyneth was great, and she was very minimalist in her style. And so she would come through and she would pick out clothes. And Carolyn Bessette, she wasn't Kennedy yet, but Carolyn Bessette was the person who would help the VIPs pick out their clothes so they would encounter one another. And I talked to sources close to Carolyn who said that Gwyneth irked her and that when she would see, like, photos of Gwyneth in the newspaper, she would have, like, a smart remark about her.

Lauren Sherman (26:04)

That's interesting. It's. I. It's always fascinating to me to see how Gwyneth's style evolved and thinking about, like, I wonder. I wonder if they would have anything. Any similarities now, the. In terms of, like, how they dress or anything. Anyway, you focused more on her personal life. I feel like in the earlier And I guess when as you get older, your. Your life sort of works itself out. But then it really became a lot about this business. And why do you think she decided to, like, really do it? Just pure ambition and kind of being sick of the Hollywood machine, or do you think it was something else?

Amy Odell (26:54)

I think all of it and more. I really focused on GOOP in the second half of the book because I think that that's her big cultural impact as a celebrity is that she showed how much money people will spend on wellness no matter what science tells us. And she gave wellness a gorgeous, aspirational, luxurious aesthetic. She commoditized it as a luxury good. And she gave it a rhetoric by talking about toxins and clean living and clean eating and clean beauty, getting toxins out of your life. I mean, what is a toxin? Like, water can be toxic if you drink too much of it. Right. But she popularized this thinking and these ideas. But your question was about specifically just why she. Why she switched over. Okay, yeah, so I think it was a lot of different things. I think she was one of the first celebrities to realize, like, hey, I'm using my image to promote Estee Lauder and American Express, and instead of using my image to promote these other brands, I can use it to build my own brand I have real equity in. She also really did believe when she sent that first Goop newsletter from her kitchen in 2008, that she had great information to share with the world. So the first newsletter had humble recipes for banana nut muffins and turkey ragu, but it sort of quickly splintered off into, like, her favorite upscale hotels and restaurants. And, oh, you should invest in a little black dress from Chanel because you can pass it down to your daughter. And I like this watch from Hermes. And. And when you fry oysters at home, you can use any type of caviar for the garnish, you know, so, like, her taste level really started coming through. So there was that. That she wanted to share this information that she thought she had that was valuable. But she also was a mom, and she. One of the many controversial things she said was about how, you know, as a parent, she didn't want to go, you know, fly off to a set for a few months to film a movie because she didn't want to leave her kids. And we can understand that as parents. Right. But the way she said it, she was like, you know, she said something to be effective. And I'm paraphrasing, people with nine to five jobs don't understand, you know, what I mean, and that there were like a slew of articles rebutting those being like, oh, yes, I have it so much harder than Gwyneth Paltrow when I go stand on the Metro north train platform and the freezing cold morning to go to my office job where I'm so well compensated, you know, so all of that came out. But I do think that, that being a mom and wanting to be with her children more did have something to do with it.

Lauren Sherman (29:36)

Yeah, I get that. And I do think also you're, especially in those early years, your ambition changes.

Amy Odell (29:43)

Yeah.

Lauren Sherman (29:43)

Like what you actually want changes and that. And sometimes it goes back to what it originally was, but it's still, it's still different, which is why I live in Los Angeles. Yeah.

Amy Odell (29:56)

I think for her, I think for her it has come back a lot. I mean, we're seeing her, she's going to be in this big movie with Timothee Chalamet at the end of the year. But she, it's funny because in early interviews I found with her, she would downplay her ambition and she would literally say, I'm not ambitious. But I think ambition is a good thing. And I think that's one of her assets, you know, is that she has a big vision for her business. She has, I think in some ways a very clear vision for her business. But the company, and I believe you've written about this, Lauren just did too much and grew too big and the expenses were too great. You know, she wanted to do everything. She wanted to do fashion, beauty content, the newsletter, book publishing, the short lived print magazine. There were other projects that came and went. So it's just a lot to juggle and it gets expensive to build out a team to do all of, all of those different things.

Lauren Sherman (30:51)

Yeah. And, and you and Rachel Strugatz are in, in the, I think next week or, or in the next week there's going to be a conversation with you and, and our, our wonderful Rachel Strugatz about the goop business.

Amy Odell (31:05)

She probably fabulous reporting on it. Yeah.

Lauren Sherman (31:08)

Yes. Yeah, she's, she's really on it. I remember before she, when we worked at Business of Fashion together, we were going to do a goop story together and then we never did. And when she came to Puck, we were like, we could do goop. Hi, I'm Kristen Bell and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.

Amy Odell (31:32)

We're really doing this, huh?

Lauren Sherman (31:33)

Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your VIN or license and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon.

Amy Odell (31:44)

Goodbye, Truckee. Of course, we kept the favorite. Hello, other Truckee.

Lauren Sherman (31:50)

Sell your car with Carvana today.

Amy Odell (31:52)

Terms and conditions apply.

Lauren Sherman (31:55)

Hey there, cats and kittens. It's Brian from the commercial break. The mediocre comedy podcast where my best friend Chrissy and I attempt to make sense of the world. We, we talk about the absurd, the ridiculous and the stuff no one asked for, like Internet weirdos, pickup artists, and why everyone is obsessed with crystals and colonics. It's all gotta stop. The show is free, it's frequent, and it's probably not for everyone. You can go to tcbpodcast.com, subscribe@YouTube.com thecommercial break, or check out the show wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll see you on the next commercial break. And best to you. Okay, I wanna kind of go in a little bit into the business. But first, one thing about her, and this is kind of coming back to that parallel with Anna, they just seem like totally different people. But she did always sort of be. Seem like she was in on the joke a little bit. Like she has that thing that a lot of founders or celebrities have where you can't always see what she's thinking, but sometimes she is like express exposes her. I. I've heard of things she's blurted out in meetings about her ambitions for the business or whatever that like she should not be saying to a group of 15 people or would just be like sort of doesn't get. Give a shit what other people think and say whatever she wants. And the fact that she does engage with press and understands. Like the first year I was at Puck, we asked her to do a gift guide thing and, and I was like, you can totally have her do a thing from goop. I don't care. I just think. And she picked the sweater that she wore at the trial and was very funny about it. Like it. In some ways she, she engaged with us. Like she wasn't, she wasn't like, oh no, they've written that my company's in trouble. She's. She did it. So it's. Sometimes it feels like she gets it and she's in on the joke and she's self aware and, and then sometimes it feels like the total opposite and is why the business is in the state it is now. But I'm curious, you. You know her better than anyone outside of her inner circle at this point. Like what do you think is it is.

Amy Odell (34:06)

I think sometimes she's in on the joke and sometimes she's not. And I think that she's been able to brush off a lot of criticism. She's been able to lean into criticism and controversy to grow her business, maybe better than, I don't know, any founder in the last 20 years. But things do bother her. I wouldn't say that she's completely unbothered by everything written about her. I didn't get that at all. I mean, there were some things, and I talk about them in the book and the press that did bother her, like, you know, particular magazine profiles or, you know, when she was featured in Talk. Both times she was unhappy with that. There was a story in the New York Times about ghostwritten cookbooks that referenced her book and the collaborators she had. And she was upset enough about that to go on, or seemingly upset about that to go on Rachael Ray to talk about it and be like, I didn't have a ghostwriter on my cookbook. So there have been times where, yeah, she's not been totally happy. I mean, it would be unreasonable to expect her to not have these reactions.

Lauren Sherman (35:06)

That anecdote drove me nuts. But because I think Julia Tershen, who worked with her on the cookbooks, whether or not it was ghost writing or she just helped develop the recipes, whatever, I actually think Julia Tershen's biggest talent is helping people develop their recipes. Like her collaborations with other people.

Amy Odell (35:27)

She's very good.

Lauren Sherman (35:28)

She's very good. And her books are good, but they're not as good as the Gwyneth books. Like, the Gwyneth books are amazing. We use them constantly, constantly in. In the house. And the first two that she did with Julia, and it's too bad that that relationship. And I do see a pattern with her with people who she is close with, business wise. And then there is, like, Elise Lunan is a similar thing where they had a really good collaboration, like they had a really good thing going, whether or not you agreed with conscious uncoupling and all, all the woo woo stuff. But, like, they really seem to be a good team. And then for whatever reason, it feels like she at some point breaks up with people.

Amy Odell (36:17)

Yeah, I think that, yeah, that's a good observation. And I think that that's why GOOP can be a hard place to work, because people worry about that happening to them. Because she can make you feel like you're her best friend. And when she makes you privy to her charisma in that way, like People feel great, they feel amazing. They thrive on it. But if she takes that attention away or she decides she has new favorites, people can become very stressed out, and that stress can just permeate the entire office environment at goop.

Lauren Sherman (36:46)

Yeah. What do you think when you look back at that business? Like, what do you think they should have done in the beginning? Because right now they've restructured it for, like, the 15th time, and it seems like she wants it to work and they want to sell. I know that.

Amy Odell (37:04)

Sure, she does.

Lauren Sherman (37:05)

She. She's wanted to sell it for years. And. But the. The problem with it, maybe Goop Kitchen will be the. The. Which is technically a separate business and has different investors. Maybe that'll be the thing that really takes off. I don't. I don't know. But what do you think? Sort of went wrong and went right with goop.

Amy Odell (37:31)

Yeah. So I think that Gwyneth, to her credit, she is like the original influencer, because think back to 2008. Social media was brand new, and it was not a given that celebrities were going to participate in it. And actors in particular were really slow to. To come around. I think Instagram launched. Was it 2010, I want to say. Anyway, so when she started this newsletter in 2008, like, celebrities were not on the Internet or social media. Like, not necessarily, but she was leaning into it and starting a newsletter and saying, hey, I'm going to use my image to create my own brand that I have equity and that I own. And I think she was a visionary and having an instinct for people's interest in wellness and being able to monetize that and dominating the attention economy with controversies and using that to her business advantage. I'm not saying I personally agree with that, but it did help her business to get all those eyeballs on her. What went wrong? I think that, you know, and this is based on talking to executives who were there, I think that they. They did too much. I think, you know, and to her credit, she's ambitious. She wanted to do it all, but it was too expensive to build out all those different teams. And, you know, what people said to me is that she might have had more success if she had focused on one thing like beauty. Obviously, now celebrities are going really hard on beauty. Maybe if she had leaned into that and made that really, really great, that would have worked, and then she could have branched off into clothing and other stuff. And I also think, you know, while I don't agree with a lot of the content that promoted pseudoscience, now that they've cut back the content team. I don't know that the company feels or that the brand feels like it has its soul. Like that was kind of the soul of. It was getting a little window into Gwyneth's life, a little window into her psyche, where she was eating, what she was thinking, what. Well, this practices she was trying to. And now you don't get as much of that. So it's just kind of like any other newsletter that's trying to sell you sweaters and moisturizers all day long.

Lauren Sherman (39:41)

Yeah, I think there's something that my boss always says, like, do you want it to be a lifestyle business or do you want it to be a real business? And I think what she was building was a lifestyle business, which is awesome and can be like maybe even $100 million a year in sales, but it's much harder to make that into something profitable. And the next Martha Stewart, which is what I thought when she hired Lisa Gersh, which you detail closely in the book, I thought she was trying to do. And she could do all these different things. That's why I'm a huge Gwyneth fan. I've always have been. I love her point of view. I'm not as into the woo woo stuff, but I like reading about it. But it was always for me, kind of the mix and that she had a real personality. And so I've always been kind of pro. I think when you get a bunch of investors and a lot of those investors don't care if it never sells because they just want to be close to her, but some of them do. And then also you, you just, you, you don't professionalize in the way that you need to or to the extent that it, it can really. It can. It's. It'll be a licensing company.

Amy Odell (41:05)

But my understanding is that her board, they don't really ride her hard. You know what I mean? No, like, because she has that like powerful aura and charisma, that it factor, you know, to go back to her 90s title of being an it girl, like, she really has that and people, people really bow down to it. And she. That gives her a lot of control and power as a CEO. So that's all to her credit. Another thing I feel we should talk about is like the risk with these celebrity brands is that the celebrity stops promoting it and people stop buying it. Right. So you need to create a brand that can stand apart from yourself. And Gwyneth, to her credit, has talked about that in interviews. How she knows it's Important to create a brand that can, you know, outlast her and survive without her. But I don't know that Goop has done that. You know, you look at a brand like skims, much bigger brand. They have had a lot of success with ad campaigns featuring Kate Moss, Charlie xcx. Like they brought in new faces. And that's very strategic and that's crucial because if Gwyneth decides like I want to go back to acting or, you know, I don't, I don't feel like spending all my time on this. She doesn't have to, you know, I do think that it might imperil their sales because she is such an effective driver of sales, which is again to her credit.

Lauren Sherman (42:18)

Totally. It is back to being that combo of like founder syndrome and celebrity syndrome where Kim Kardashian knows how to get out of her own way. And she, she wants one thing, she wants that thing to be successful. And so I think for Gwyneth it's, it's more complex of what she actually wants out of.

Amy Odell (42:41)

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Lauren Sherman (43:43)

I want to talk about the maha of it all and the jade egg and the all of that stuff. And you're right that it was driving so much coverage and so much attention to Goop in the mid-2020 tens with the Goop crews, all that stuff and then Jen Gunter, the doctor going up against her even I think that even was in a weird way beneficial. I have been very surprised because I have a lot of friends who are Gwyneth, people like me who in the last couple of months have been really turned off by like in the Vanity Fair profile she doesn't come out and say rfk, I don't agree with him.

Amy Odell (44:30)

Like she just.

Lauren Sherman (44:30)

And I was like why? She actually sort of leaned into it. I was very surprised because. And I will say I don't. Rachel is the one who's covering GOOP day to day for us now. But also I've never been as interested in the woo Woo part of her business. I've always been interested in what about of the business model and like she'll have. She had multi brand retail and is the clothing doing well? Is the beauty beauty what you know I'm think and I haven't thought as much about that stuff but what I did notice very early in Covid was that they didn't go anti vax. Like they didn't really talk about it at all from what I remember. I remember there are a couple of vague articles, but that was the era. And you were obviously Amy's book is really comprehensive. You write very specifically about when they started to like pull away from the. The Woo Woo stuff a little bit. But that's why a can you talk a bit about her decision to strategically move away from the Woo stuff and how that probably plays into the fact that she started getting rid of a lot of the editorial people and then also why you think she hasn't been just like this Maha stuff is bs don't listen to it. Which she should like that's. That would be the responsible thing. You can be woo Woo and not be Maha. Like as all my mom group WhatsApp group texts prove.

Amy Odell (45:59)

Yeah, I mean that's true. So with the less woo Woo stuff on goop, I mean there's still some of it there. It's not like it's totally gone. And she'll go on a podcast and talk about drinking raw milk or she talked about in Vanity Fair drinking raw milk. All raw milk is going to do is increase your risk of getting a foodborne illness and particularly if you have young kids. You know, I interviewed a lot of experts in Gwyneth and group critics and one pointed out if you have young kids at home, like you don't want raw milk in your house. You don't want to risk them ingesting that. So there's that. But I think that there's overlap between RFK and Gwyneth and their rhetoric and you know, they have both sowed a distrust of the medical establishment. RFK version, correctly to your point, I think is A much more extreme version and that he's so anti vax. And it's terrifying to see the implications of that and measles that were eradicated in 2000 now roaring back. And I'm hearing that, you know, I was trying to think back to when my kids were babies and I don't recall feeling like I can't get on a plane with them because they didn't get their measles shop. And now I think that's where we are. So, you know, this is really scary. And I do think that the wellness industry and like, similar to rfk, it's sowed a distrust of western medicine and established science and a distrust of expertise and a distrust of, you know, healthcare in the United States and pharmaceuticals in the United States because they're, because they make money. I mean, let's look at the numbers though. You know, we think of Big Pharma, big tech, big ag, big food, big wellness is a $6.3 trillion industry. Big pharma is 1.6 or 1.7 trillion trillion. So it's much smaller. And I think the reason for that is that if you're going to get a new drug to market, at least right now, you have to show, you know, according to FDA requirements, that it could help people. Wellness products don't have to help anybody. And supplements are regulated like food, so it's easier to get them to market. But there is this overlap in the philosophy. And yeah, I think that if she wanted to denounce rfk, she could. And I don't, I don't know why she's not, I did not hear that she's anti vax. So, you know, I don't think she's anti vax. But yeah, she could say when she's asked about rfk, you know, I don't agree with him. I think this is dangerous. That, of course, is kind of a political statement. It's a bit, you know, maybe inflammatory. Maybe she doesn't want to alienate that group of potential customers. I don't know.

Lauren Sherman (48:32)

Look, I think, and I am not judgmental about stuff like this ever. I never talk about politics. I never post anything. I'm pretty old school in that way. But I think in this case, like A, it would bring her a lot of good attention and B, I just. Why, why be so care. Like, why suddenly turn the knob and, and be very like, we're pulling away from our, our, you know, wellness content and we're not going to say we're anti vax because she's not And I. I'm sure there were people who worked at Group who were. And most people weren't. Weren't. Because, you know, but, like, I just personally think this is a case where it's just strange to me, like, why did she bother pulling back so much if when something like this happens, she isn't going to use her influence? Because her. Her saying that he was full of shit would mean something to people. And it would also honestly bring respect to her for people who have maybe lost respect of her. And that's what I think is interesting.

Amy Odell (49:44)

The comments that she's made publicly. And only she knows what she really thinks. Obviously, let's, you know, make that clear. But the comments that she's made publicly suggest that she agrees with him on something. So maybe that's what it is. And I. I did not get the sense that she's selling, you know, that the wellness products that she sold were things that she didn't believe in. So I was told that she really believed in that jdag, you know, like, she. I think she's someone who has been indoctrinated into this wellness world and is just kind of sharing it, you know, with her fans and with Goop's followers. So. And then regarding, you know, Goop pulling back, my understanding is that, like, a lot of consultants came in and out of there. I know Rachel has done some reporting on this for you and Puck. Um, so, you know, they decided to focus the business because they needed to streamline it on fashion, beauty and food. Food being Goop Kitchen and wellness fell a bit to the wayside. I mean, they still sell some wellness products. I think the supplements I heard were hard for them. I kind of wondered if that was because, like, with a beauty product or with the clothing, you can see it on Gwyneth and then you want to buy it. And with supplements, there's not the same cell there. Like, you know, like, I can't. There's nothing sort of like immediately with a supplement that I'm going to be like, oh, that's going to, like, help me look better or whatever they claim that it may do, but. Yeah.

Lauren Sherman (51:04)

Amy, have you tried Goop Kitchen?

Amy Odell (51:07)

No. I know people love it because the guy who does it, the guy who works on it, Mario Del Perro, he is behind Mendocino Farms, which I have eaten at, which is incredible.

Lauren Sherman (51:21)

Yeah, it's good. If I have to say it was better in the. In the beginning, it's not as good as it was originally. I was obsessed with it also. We didn't have it on the east side. And, you know, when you get things on the east side, then you're. Or you get things that you couldn't have before, they become less special. But I do think it's a really great concept and is super smart. We actually were at a ghost kitchen once and that guy was picking our goop kitchen up on the west side. And that guy was there, the Mend. Mendocino Farms guy, talking about. Yeah. But it's an interesting. And I think it has a lot.

Amy Odell (51:59)

Of potential, looking back, don't you think? Like, to your point about the licensing, like, that could be a model maybe for the business. Right. Like, she wants to license the name.

Lauren Sherman (52:08)

I think she should sell the company to ABG or another licenser. And then she should. You know, honestly, she could start over. I loved that newsletter. I think, like, she. She could pull a Graydon Carter and like, do something again. And that has a similar vibe. And it went. Yeah, like, that's what was so fun about it. I loved reading about her.

Amy Odell (52:33)

Her.

Lauren Sherman (52:34)

Her telling people to buy people a little black dress. Like, when people are. Are true to themselves, even if it's ridiculous and can be sort of. She can be sort of terrible, which is what the book indicates. Like, she's. She can be mean. She can be. She's not a perfect person, but that's why people.

Amy Odell (52:53)

She's authentic. I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but she really is. Like, she never pretended that she was someone she wasn't, and that's why people really like her.

Lauren Sherman (53:02)

Yeah. And. And I feel like I really got that in the book, too. The person who I was hoping she was, who is not a perfect person, who can be truly awful, is the person that you depicted. What was the most fun thing. And then. And then we can. I'll let you get to your millions of other promotions I'm sure you're doing this week, but what was the most, like, the. Maybe the most surprising or interesting part of all this, doing this?

Amy Odell (53:29)

I think that the most surprising thing to me is just, you know, going into this project. I was born in 1985, so I remember Gwyneth growing up. I've seen her so much in the media, read so many stories about her, seen her on talk shows so many times, and I was just surprised to hear about the side of Gwyneth that I had never seen before, which was basically what you were just describing, that she can be cold, she can be icy, she can be aloof. People compared her to Anna Wintour. I was really surprised by that, the Anna Winter comparison had to do with basically her acting kind of like any busy editor in chief when she's running goop, because she really is in there running it day to day. So you would expect Anna Winter to, like, you know, if you walk into her office, she's busy. She doesn't have a lot of time for you. You have to ask her question and get a quick answer and get out so she can get back to what she's doing. And Gwyneth is kind of the same way. I also thought it was really interesting how people said she's a great editor, not only in terms of the taste level in the curation and, you know, the selection of, like, products she's featuring and gift guides and all of that, but also in terms of the words. I think that she has a gift for language, and I think that's what really made her a great actress. She learned to speak Spanish when she was in high school perfectly. People talked about that a lot. And she's proficient in other languages. So I think she's really good with language, even though she wasn't an academically inclined person. And then the most fun part of it probably was reporting on that kan a Nast magazine, because Kanye Nass. When I did the Anna book, you know, I got obviously a lot of interviews about Conde Nast, but it's become easier to get people to talk. And people, you know, there's something delightful about talking to a journalist who has sort of a similar viewpoint on, you know, the stuff is you. And so that was. That was great fun. People. People had fun reminiscing about that. Yeah.

Lauren Sherman (55:26)

I love that you quoted Bob Sauerburg, who basically got left out of Michael Grimbaum's book, and I sort of felt bad for him.

Amy Odell (55:32)

Really?

Lauren Sherman (55:34)

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't really. I don't know if you've read it, but he's so nice. He's so nice. And the book is not really about the last 20 years of Conde. It's really about the 80s and 90s. Yes. So I understand. And I'm sure he talked to Bob, you know, great guy, Ms. Bob. He's really nice. But I. I really enjoyed reading it. And thank you for being here. Do you have the. The subject of your next. Your next one. Do you think you'll keep doing these, like, biographies of women? Do you feel like that's your thing in the book world?

Amy Odell (56:07)

Do you think I should do biographies of men?

Lauren Sherman (56:10)

Maybe. That's interesting.

Amy Odell (56:12)

Who do you think I should write about? I don't know. I really don't know. It's hard to think of a good subject for a biography.

Lauren Sherman (56:20)

Yeah. Who is interesting enough that is also important. I think some, some influencery, like, look, there's going to be a million Kim Kardashian books. So you don't want to do that.

Amy Odell (56:36)

I can't even imagine, though, Lauren, like, going through the Gwyneth Archive. Can you imagine the Kim Kardashian archive?

Lauren Sherman (56:42)

What about a Kris Jenner?

Amy Odell (56:45)

She would be interesting. I think she would be interesting. I'm not a Kardashian, like, person.

Lauren Sherman (56:50)

I know.

Amy Odell (56:51)

I don't, I don't. I never, like, watched the show.

Lauren Sherman (56:53)

Yeah, I get it.

Amy Odell (56:56)

But she's a genius. So people did. Someone said to me, like, because I was just comparing in an interview, like, Kim Kardashian and Skims and all those brands to goop. And someone said to me, you know, like, the Kardashians businesses, like, they could work because those girls are business animals and Kris Jenner is behind all of it.

Lauren Sherman (57:17)

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a topic for another day. But I, I am mad. Respect for everyone involved. Amy, thank you so much. Congrats and good luck this week. I'm sure it's going to be great.

Amy Odell (57:30)

Thanks so much, Lauren.

Lauren Sherman (57:32)

Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck co founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy and director of editorial operations, Gabby Grossman. An additional thanks to the team at Odyssey, JD Crowley, Jenna Weiss Berman and Bob Tabador.

Amy Odell (57:57)

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