Enlarge / Joe Rogan on July 9, 2021, in Las Vegas, NV. (credit: Getty | Icon Sportswire)
Long before the pandemic took the lives of more than 5.6 million people and created a lucrative market for COVID grifts, misinformation, and snake oil, there was Goop.
The aspirational lifestyle brand and its lustrous “contextual commerce” products are helmed by actor Gwyneth Paltrow, who has used her fame, wealth, and enviable genetics to peddle all manner of wellness pseudoscience and quackery. With the manipulative mantra of “empowering” women to seize control of their health and destinies, Paltrow’s Goop has touted extremely questionable—if not downright dangerous—products. Perhaps the most notorious is the jade egg, a $66 egg-shaped rock Goop advised women to shove up their vaginas while claiming it could treat medical conditions, “detox” lady bits, and invigorate mystical life forces (of course).
But let’s not forget the $135 “Implant O’Rama” enema device intended to squirt scalding coffee into your colon, the $90 luxury vitamins that almost certainly do nothing, or the $85 “medicine bag” of small, polished rocks that Goop suggests have magical wellness properties. Then there was the bee-sting therapy—no, not therapy for bee stings but therapy imparted from bee stings. Paltrow personally endorsed the practice, which was blamed for the death of a 55-year-old Spanish woman in 2018.
