Inside the ‘noxious, chaotic’ atmosphere at Goop: book

Although she can appear as glacial as a Hitchcock blonde, Gwyneth Paltrow swears like a sailor and boasts to friends about her bedroom secrets -– even down to her love of a very specific sex act with ex Ben Affleck, a new book reveals.

“She’s someone who has monetized her sexuality and her sex life. She sold a candle called ‘This Smells Like My Vagina,’ and she’s talked really frankly about getting [oral sex] lessons,” Amy Odell, author of the new “Gwyneth: The Biography.”

Even the sign on Paltrow’s parking space at Goop headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., reads: “Reserved for G-Spot.”

“She can be really bawdy, very funny and cutting,” Odell told Page Six of the actress-turned-entrepreneur. “Particularly early in her public life, people said she could just be really different when the cameras were off:

Odell paints a picture of a woman who can turn her dazzling charm on and off like a light switch.

The book details how staffers at Goop — including a food editor expected to make Paltrow’s lunch who “came to seriously resent the agreement” — often feel they cannot tell her “No.”

“She’s always lived this very glamorous, luxurious life,” Odell noted. “But she’s never really apologized for that. She’s just like, ‘This is who I am, and this is what I know, and you can take it or leave it.’”

Paltrow can equally be extremely dismissive of her lovers, allegedly telling beauty heiress Aerin Lauder that her ex-fiancé Brad Pitt was “dumber than a sack of s–-t.”

The pair dated from 1994 to 1997 after meeting on the set of “Se7en,” and although she was reportedly “sad” when Pitt wed Jennifer Aniston, she sniped that he “has terrible taste in women,” according to the book.

Writes Odell: “She thought she was smarter, better educated, more sophisticated” than Pitt.

Paltrow and ex-husband Chris Martin, meanwhile, were never right for each other, Odell told Page Six..

The pair, who share daughter, Apple, 21, and son Moses, 19, eloped in December 2003 with no family present.

“Paltrow was in a particular place because she was grieving [the death of her father, director Bruce Paltrow],” Odell said. Chris “was there for her at a really difficult time … people said they just didn’t seem to really gel or really have the best chemistry or have that much in common. 

“Her friends … were settling down and she wanted that too and so she found that with Chris.”

The pair split in March 2014, and the book says, “Though Gwyneth really committed to consciously uncoupling for the sake of her kids, she admitted to coworkers how eager she’d been to purge one relic of her marriage.

“I definitely didn’t want that mattress around,” employees heard her say at the Goop office. “I had to get that energy out of the house. I had to change that mattress. Ew.”

Paltrow went on to wed producer Brad Falchuk in September 2018.

“She and Brad Falchuk, as I understand it, they have a lot in common. People said they’re so in love,” Odell said.

And the actress’s fame doesn’t hurt: “He loves being Gwyneth Paltrow’s husband.”

Odell also gives an insightful glimpse into the star’s not-so-humble beginnings.

Indeed, the nepo baby, now 52, once griped when she was forced to fly coach with her mom, actress Blythe Danner: “We’re flying no class?”

As a student at Manhattan’s exclusive Spence School, Odell reports, Patlrow was a “polarizing” character when she joined in the seventh grade — and got into trouble for drawing a penis in the library.

According to the book, “When Gwyneth got rejected from Vassar, her parents decided to call in a favor. Their friend, actor Michael Douglas, put in a word at his alma mater, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Gwyneth was admitted for a January 1991 start.”

Paltrow, however, who counts Steven Spielberg as her godfather, just wanted to act — and soon dropped out of college.

Despite her success, she has always felt “inadequate” about not getting her college degree, according to Odell.

The actress was celebrating her 30th birthday in Rome with her beloved dad, a producer of the TV hit “St Elsewhere,” when he died due to complications from pneumonia and throat cancer.

The overwhelming grief led the actress, who won an Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love” at just 26, to the wellness industry and forming Goop.

“She’s talked about how, when her dad got sick, she started looking for answers,” said Odell, “People observed that she will go to these different gurus, and they’re always willing to tell her that she has a problem.”

The author, who spoke to more than 200 sources for the book, writes at length about the criticism Goop has come under for including woo-woo health theories and remedies — including its now-infamous jade eggs, meant to be inserted into the vagina.

The site was fined $145,000 by the state of California for claiming the yoni eggs had several health benefits, from balancing hormones and regulating menstrual cycles to increasing sexual energy and pleasure.

“Goop made unsubstantiated claims about three products — the Jade Egg, Rose Quartz Egg, and Inner Judge Flower Essence Blend — that were not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence,” a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office, one of the prosecutors involved, said in 2018.

The Yoni eggs are still on the site for $66 — but the claims are missing. Instead, they are promoted to “harness the power of energy work, crystal healing, and a Kegel-like physical practice.”

“Neither Paltrow, nor Goop’s board nor its investors were concerned about these controversies,” the book adds.

“I don’t get the sense that she’s publishing things and promoting people she doesn’t believe in,” Odell said.

The writer added that Paltrow, who started her Goop newsletter from her kitchen table, is actually a great editor — but a hard task master, along the lines of Anna Wintour.

Paltrow “could also be aloof, kind of like Anna, but then she can be very charismatic when she needs to turn on the charm,” Odell said.

One former employee told Odell, “I never felt less well in my life than during my time there. I didn’t take care of myself at all.”

According to the book, “While most employees called her ‘GP,’ those who pronounced ‘Gwyneth’ wrong (Gwyneth made clear to new staff that her name was pronounced ‘Gwyn’ like ‘pin’ instead of ‘Gwen’ like ‘pen’) would get corrected and chastised by colleagues.”

While Paltrow presents a polished image of Goop in the press, the office culture can be “noxious and chaotic,” according to former employees.

“Gwyneth could sour on people, particularly those who got too clingy. Other employees were intimidated by her perfection and reluctant to assert themselves. Either way, almost no one — Goop’s board included — was willing to tell her no,” the book says.

Editors have been “overworked and underpaid,” and editorial staff “opened their laptops as soon as they woke up and worked until they went to bed … Some staff felt burnt out.”

There isn’t a “lot of tolerance for imperfection” — down to Paltrow castigating staff in the Goop Slack channel when she found that “someone tinkled” on a toilet seat in the office. “Make sure to clean up after yourselves,” she wrote.

Eventually, Paltrow would love her daughter, Apple, to take over the company, Odell told Page Six.

It’s interesting, Odell noted, that Paltrow is now going back to acting when she was “so vociferous about never doing it again.” She recently filmed the movie “Marty Supreme” with Timothée Chalamet.

“What does that say about her? She said this one thing and now she’s changed her mind,” said Odell. “And with Goop, my understanding is that her image really does help sell those products that Goop has in their store. 

“What if she decides that she doesn’t want to do Goop anymore? Do those products stop selling? Like, does that make Goop an unattractive acquisition target? Because you take on that risk of maybe she’s going to stop — and then you’re not going to be able to sell stuff. 

“The amazing thing about her, though, is that like she’s always she always comes out on top.”