Why Gwyneth Paltrow's former right-hand woman has quit cleanses for good.

I can’t even imagine what it’s like to work for Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand Goop, but I’m envisioning a life of jade eggs shoved up your hoo-hah while the smell of vagina wafts from candles delicately placed around a beige coloured office in LA. 

To be honest, I’m probably not too far off. Because one woman – the actress's former right-hand woman – has lifted the lid on life behind the scenes of the most well-known wellness company in the world. 

But it’s a lot darker than I pictured. 

Watch the Netflix trailer for The Goop Lab With Gwyneth Paltrow. Post continues after video.

Elise Loehnen was Paltrow’s second-ever hire in 2014, and helped turn, what was once a simple newsletter, into a global brand. For six years she was Paltrow’s go-to woman until 2020 when the chief content officer – who was also recording the Goop podcast, ghostwriting books, travelling non-stop, and bringing up her two young sons – walked away from her prized position. 

And we’ve only now found out why. 

“I couldn’t catch my breath,” Elise told The Times, and not just figuratively. Every day she left like she was going to die, and in late 2019 she hyperventilated for an entire month. Often ending up in hospital, the then 43-year-old was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. 

“I didn’t know how to get on top of my life,” she said. “I was driven by constant anxiety: it’s not enough, you don’t have enough, you’re not enough. Until I was like, I can’t live like this.” 

“I went into full rebellion”

In a world where Hollywood’s diet culture has infiltrated society, Paltrow is at the top of the list when it comes to controversial celebrities. 

It’s a well-known fact that the 50-year-old regularly fasts and earlier this year she revealed on a podcast that she doesn’t eat anything until lunchtime when she has... just bone broth. 

After six years of testing new ‘wellness’ theories – like magic mushrooms, energy healing, and a session of MDMA therapy – Elise finally got off the Goop train. 

Gwyneth Paltrow and Elise Loehnen. Image: Getty Images.

But she didn’t just get off, she jumped. 

Posting on Instagram at the time that she was eating “like a teenager”, Elise confirmed that she’d taken a break from the “toxic” diet culture.

“I vowed to never do another cleanse and went into full rebellion,” she told The Times. 

“I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder, but I spent my whole life in a permitting/restricting cycle. Many of us believe we are out of control, that our wanting is dangerous, that we will be maniacs with food unless we tamp [our hunger] down. 

‘We treat ourselves like we’re prisoners.”

“Pleasure over fasting”

Not once in Elise’s interview did she mention Gwyneth Paltrow or even Goop, only referring to it as “that company.” But she had a lot to say about today’s wellness culture and obsession with biohacking, tracking our body’s statistics and trying to live as long as possible. 

“It’s just creating busyness to stave off the inevitable,” she said. “Which is that you’re going to die.

“Busyness is like an addiction, and busyness is a repressive function, particularly for mothers. If you keep moving you don’t have to let anything come up. It keeps our anger and resentment at bay.”

Elise has, however, put all of her thoughts down now in a new book, On Our Best Behaviour: The Price Women Pay to Be Good, in which sure encourages happiness over busyness and pleasure over fasting (no guessing who that’s aimed at). 

But how does that work in LA – where Elise and her family live – or “Ozempic land” as she called it, named after the diabetes drug that starves off an appetite and is allegedly rife through Hollywood?

The mother of two explained that she’ll go out to dinner and realise that she’s the only one eating. 

“Why are we killing that pleasure?” she asked. “I love food. I want to eat whatever I want.”

While she still has the occasional anxiety attack, Elise lives a calmer, more “in control” life now, and is enjoying every last morsel. 

Images: Getty + Mamamia.