“Logo text Turns out being called a “hack” by Gwyneth Paltrow might just be the best thing that’s happened to Amy Odell. The journalist and author — whose Gwyneth Paltrow: The Biography debuted at No. 5 on The New York Times best-seller list when it dropped in July — has been busier than ever since”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Turns out being called a “hack” by Gwyneth Paltrow might just be the best thing that’s happened to Amy Odell.
The journalist and author — whose Gwyneth Paltrow: The Biography debuted at No. 5 on The New York Times best-seller list when it dropped in July — has been busier than ever since the Goop founder let loose on the book in the November issue of British Vogue. Although Paltrow admitted she hadn’t read the tome, she noted that her husband, TV scribe Brad Falchuk, had “flipped through it,” and that was enough for her to declare it “rubbish.” Then, she added: “Why do the men get Walter Isaacson and I get this hack?”
Odell, who also wrote a best-selling Anna Wintour biography and runs the popular Substack Back Row, found out about the slam the same way everyone did — online, where the diss quickly went viral. “I’m a suburban mother of two,” she says. “No one expects to take their kids to school and then come home and read this whole thing about them in British Vogue.”
Since the burn, though, Odell has practically found herself on an impromptu book tour. She appeared onstage after a performance of Gwyneth Goes Skiingan off-Broadway musical about Paltrow’s 2016 lawsuit over a ski-slope collision with an optometrist in Utah. And although Odell’s publisher won’t offer up any numbers, it’s safe to say all the publicity probably hasn’t been bad for sales.
“Her remarks were more pointed [than I expected],” says Odell, who interviewed more than 200 sources for the biography. “But I think it’s great that a nonfiction book is in the conversation.”
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Also in Rambling Reporter:
South Park takes security threat seriously — A new guard is suddenly camped outside the often-offensive cartoon’s production offices in Marina del Rey — and it isn’t Cartman.
An iconic Seinfeld episode turns 30 — The writer who turned “no soup for you” into one of the most quoted catchphrases in sitcom history recalls how The Soup Nazi became a thing.
This story appeared in the Nov. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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