Samantha Bee slams Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop for touting ‘pseudoscience’

Samantha Bee has slammed the $4.5 trillion wellness industry for touting potentially dangerous ‘pseudoscience,’ while calling out her ‘favorite offender’: Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand Goop.

In a recent segment on her show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, the 50-year-old railed against alternative health products and treatments that are targeted at women without any real scientific backing. 

‘What can seem like innocuous woo from charging your crystals in the moonlight to lighting a candle to ward off Mondays can quickly change into pseudoscience that at best is a waste of money and at worst is dangerous,’ Bee explained. 

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‘Women, in particular, are relentlessly preyed upon by companies that work to exploit their insecurities while making impossible claims,’ she continued. ‘It’s pseudoscience, and we can’t talk about it without first addressing my favorite offender: Goop.’

Paltrow’s Goop empire, which was valued at $250 million in 2018, includes a lifestyle website, a range of vitamins, skin-care products, and a Netflix docuseries, The Goop Lab, among other things. 

‘Goop sells products that are perfect for the woman who has everything but the weirdest s**t in the world,’ the host said. ‘Things like vitamins that claim to help someone function at an “intense pace,” rip-off Lisa Frank stickers that boost “cell turnover,” psychic vampire repellent, and a vibrator that is also a necklace finished in 24 karat gold.’

Bee stressed that Goop has recommended ‘questionable spa treatments’ like vaginal steaming, which involves sitting over a bowl of boiling water and herbs.

‘If that sounds dangerous and unnecessary, it’s because it is!’ she said, noting that one woman suffered from second-degree burns after attempting to steam her vagina.  

Gynecologists have repeatedly warned that vaginal steaming can cause infections and is not proven to work. 

‘Of course, none of that is going to stop Goop. They still sell products and treatments that claim to fix various medical issues even as they’re called out for fraud,’ Bee said. 

In 2018, Goop agreed to pay a $145,000 settlement over a false advertising lawsuit in which prosecutors from the California Food, Drug and Medical Device Task Force alleged that three of the company’s female sexual health products were ‘not supported by competent and reliable science.’

Among the products in question were Goop’s jade and rose quartz eggs, which sell for $66 and $55, respectively. 

The company claimed the eggs could balance hormones, regulate menstrual cycles, prevent uterine prolapse and increase bladder control when inserted into a woman’s vagina. 

‘Some women even sleep with that jade egg in their spunk huts, which can put a person at risk for bacterial vaginosis or toxic shock syndrome. It’s truly the worst thing Paltrow has endorsed putting inside your vagina since Chris Martin,’ Bee said, referring to the actress’s ex-husband.   

Goop settled the lawsuit, but the wellness brand suggested that the power of the quartz vagina eggs was still up for debate. 

‘While Goop believes there is an honest disagreement about these claims, the company wanted to settle this matter quickly and amicably,’ the company told SFGate in a statement. 

Bee pointed out that Goop is just one of countless wellness companies that take advantage of the FDA’s loose regulations by promising claims ‘they can’t possibly deliver.’ 

‘As long as the product doesn’t claim to mitigate, treat or cure anything, companies don’t have to prove it actually does what it’s advertising,’ she explained, adding: ‘Because there’s no legal definition for terms such as “clean” or “natural” those words can mean whatever the f**k companies want them to.’

The host ended the segment by noting that the country’s health is being put at risk because of wellness companies that encourage people to be suspicious of science. 

‘Mistrust in science, in general, is the reason why so many people believe masks cause coronavirus and 30 per cent of Americans believe coronavirus was created in a lab. This is a terrible time to consciously uncouple from science,’ she said, mocking the term Paltrow famously used to describe her split from Martin.