Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Netflix Series Under Fire From Social Media and Healthcare Professionals

Gwyneth Paltrow is taking her lifestyle brand Goop to a new platform, teaming up with Netflix for [...]

By Hannah Barnes

Gwyneth Paltrow is taking her lifestyle brand Goop to a new platform, teaming up with Netflix for the upcoming new series, The Goop Lab. A new trailer for the show shared a bit more about what viewers can expect, and some healthcare professionals aren't buying what Paltrow is selling.

"Hear me out," tweeted Jennifer Gunter, OB/GYN, who has been critical of Goop in the past. "Medical ideas that are too 'out there or scary' should, you know, be studied before that let are offered to people as an option."

The Goop Lab premieres on Netflix on Jan. 24 for a six-episode series and, according to its trailer, will explore energy healing, psychic mediums, psychedelics, sexual health and more. "This is dangerous," someone says, as someone else intones, "It's unregulated." "Should I be scared?" Paltrow asks.

"What we try to do at Goop is explore ideas that may seem out-there, or too scary," Elise Loehnen, chief content officer of Goop, said in the trailer.

But in a segment for the TODAY Show on Tuesday, Gunter added how it all looked like "classic Goop."

"Some fine information presented alongside unscientific, unproven, potentially harmful therapies for attention, with the disclaimer of, 'We're only having conversations!'" she told the morning show.

Goop has previously been criticized by healthcare professionals numerous times for practices it has endorsed, including using jade and quartz "eggs" to maintain vaginal health. In 2018, Goop agreed to pay $145,000 in civil penalties in a California settlement because the claims were "unsubstantiated."

After the show's trailer and poster, which sees Paltrow posing in what appears to be a vagina, social media users began sharing their thoughts, with many deeming the series as potentially harmful.

"the most horrifying thing [about] this is the word 'lab' which implies some sort of science which goop has NOTHING to do with!!" tweeted writer Amanda Rosenberg. "also the boldness of gwynnie coming to us from a vagina — a place she told us to stick jade eggs!!! this whole show is a danger to our health!!"

"I guess it was inevitable that Goop would eventually use being 'unregulated' as a selling point instead of a thing she's been fined $145,000 for by state regulators," writer Anna Merlan shared.

Speaking to CNBC, Paltrow said that 12-year-old Goop has had a science and regulatory team for one year. "We're very focused, of course, on backing up the things that we talk about with scientific claims when necessary, or being able to say, 'Hey, this is just for your entertainment,'" she said.

Photo Credit: Getty / Axelle/Bauer-Griffin

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