Gwyneth Paltrow put her Oscar winning acting skills to good use when her ex-fiancé married another woman.
A new biography about the Shakespeare in Love star, which also examines her relationship with Ben Affleck, claims Paltrow, 52, was mournful when Brad Pitt, 61, tied the knot with Jennifer Aniston in July 2000, but tried to keep it to herself, according to an excerpt published in US Weekly.
In Gwyneth: A Biography, author Amy Odell claims that Paltrow got snappy with a reporter at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of that year when asked about her love life while promoting Duets, the film she starred in, directed by her father, the late Bruce Paltrow.
‘The reporter then asked how she felt about Brad Pitt marrying Jennifer Aniston [in July of that year]. “Are you really asking me this question?” Gwyneth replied, her eyes now “daggers.” “I can’t comment on this kind of thing.” In reality, Gwyneth confided to friends that she’d felt sad when she learned they were getting married. (She was also fond of telling them that Brad “has terrible taste in women.”)’
According to an excerpt shared with People, Paltrow and Pitt met when she auditioned for a role in Legends of the Fall. She didn’t get that part, but Pitt reportedly suggested she play his wife in the horror classic Se7en, which began production in 1994.
Paltrow had also been offered a role in the Keanu Reeves project, Feeling Minnesota, and when deciding which role to take a friend reportedly asked, ‘Well, who do you want to date, Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves?’
Gwyneth Paltrow, 52, was ‘mournful’ after former fiancé Brad Pitt, 61, married another woman, according to the upcoming book Gwyneth: A Biography by Amy Odell; Pictured in London in August 1995
According to Odell, ‘The two would walk around the set holding hands, and smoked cigarettes together outside their trailers, Gwyneth holding hers like a thirties movie star.’
Daily Mail has reached out to Paltrow’s representatives for a statement regarding the allegations in the book.
The two got engaged in 1996, but there were doubts.
After Paltrow received rave reviews for her work in 1996’s Emma, she allegedly confided in her friend, makeup artist Kevin Aucoin, that Pitt ‘wanted to be with her but seemed to feel threatened by her success and all the attention she received.’
‘[Aucoin’s] advice to Gwyneth was frank, “You really need to end this,”‘ Odell wrote.
Pitt and Paltrow called it quits in 1997.
When Pitt and Aniston split in 2005, following his affair with future ex-wife Angelina Jolie, Paltrow, who had been signed as the face of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures fragrance, couldn’t help but make a snide remark at a dinner with executive Aerin Lauder.
According to the US Weekly excerpt, ‘At one dinner, the two were talking about Brad Pitt. According to someone familiar with the discussion, Gwyneth allegedly told her, “He’s dumber than a sack of s–t.”‘
This seemed to refer to their very different backgrounds.
Pitt married actress Jennifer Aniston, 56, in July 2000, three years after Pitt and Paltrow had broken up; Pictured in Cannes, France in May 2004
Paltrow and Pitt fell in love while working on the 1997 horror film Se7en. ”The two would walk around the set holding hands, and smoked cigarettes together outside their trailers,’ according to the book; Pictured in Burbank, CA in October 1995
Pitt and Paltrow got engaged in 1996, but split the next year; Pictured in Los Angeles in March 2002
After the success of 1996’s Emma, Paltrow allegedly confided a that Pitt ‘wanted to be with her but seemed to feel threatened by her success and all the attention she received’
Gwyneth: A Biography will be released on July 29. Daily Mail has reached out to Paltrow’s representatives to for a statement regarding the allegations in the book; Pictured in Beverly Hills in April 2023
Pitt grew up in a very religious family in Springfield, MO, whereas Paltrow was brought up in Manhattan and went to an elite private school.
In a 2023 interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, looking back at her breakup with Pitt, Paltrow said she was ‘totally heartbroken’ after the split but ‘It was the right thing at that time, but it was really hard.’
‘There were a number of things that had happened, he was nine years older than me — he knew what he wanted, he was ready to do it and I was kind of all over the place.’
Gwyneth: A Biography will be released on July 29.
