In the last 16 years, Goop was one of the shining lights in the celebrity business sphere. Gwyneth PaltrowWoo-woo’s wellness company has endured a lot of jokes (and very legitimate criticism about its dubious claims and the people it supports), but it’s remained a major success. In 2018, New York Times reported that Goop was worth an estimated $250 million thanks to its unusual health offerings, such as psychic vampire repellent and jade vagina eggs. Not bad for what started as a bored actress’ newsletter. But now, reports suggest that Goop is stumbling.

Last year, Goop opened a store in London, which quickly closed due to lack of interest. RadarOnline claims the shutdown cost the company about $2 million. Last week, Business Insider reported that Goop has suffered a second round of layoffs in just two months. In 2021, they also reported that 140 employees left the company in just two years. Among the problems cited were low wages, poor leadership and favoritism in the upper ranks. Yes, stopping the pandemic didn’t help, but the bleeding doesn’t seem to have stopped for Goop. In the last month, things have gotten bad enough that The Times suggested that Goop is going through an entire business overhaul just to stay afloat.

Puck also chimed in, reporting that while Goop’s food division is doing well, its fashion and beauty sides are suffering. This is bad news considering they only recently launched a skin care line available through Target. Puck wrote:

“Apparently no one at Goop had modeled for an outcome where the line failed. “After it came out and sales were terrible, there was a meeting to figure out how to make it work. It was a fight because Target was upset,” said one former employee. “They thought they were going to launch it and it was just going to take off.”

Yes. Puck Then sources said Paltrow appeared to have “disdain” for some of the products she was selling, although Goop denied this in a statement.

Goop has always been a quirky and unique presence in the world of celebrity branding. It’s so Gwyneth-specific and so purposefully inaccessible to the biggest markets and demographics that it shouldn’t have worked. However, it has become the benchmark for the celebrity business model for years, with many imitators (hello, Blake Lively) and wannabes following in their bare footsteps. Goop has been widely derided for its dubious science and charlatan promotion, but there’s also a well-known, cash-strapped audience that loves this crap. Paltrow was adept at marketing all this fake wellness nonsense and selling it to her fellow rich white ladies. She was also extremely good at monetizing those angry clicks and playing along with her own parody image, as evidenced by that vaginal candle that he exploded sadly from time to time.

So what changed? The wellness industry is definitely not dead. it’s gotten stronger and more intimidating since the lockdown, and my Instagram feed is full of “self care” routines that are just extended ads for a bunch of Temu and Amazon crap. Wealthy companies are also doing well because this is a population that remains wealthy regardless of political changes. I don’t think we’re suddenly aware that Goop sold crap either. Unfortunately, snake oil and anti-pharma rhetoric are extremely popular right now and on all sides of the political spectrum.

It seems to me that Goop was never a very reliable profit generator for Paltrow. She herself admitted this at a business summit with Forbessaying, “Within a few years, we doubled our growth. Some years, we are flat. Some years, we are down, then we come back. She wasn’t a businesswoman jumping into a market gap. She was an actress whose side project became a thing and she was okay with it. Plus, while there’s a niche for what she sells, it’s not nearly as broad as it would be to sustain a multi-pronged, Fenty-style empire. Selling your makeup line in Target at an affordable price is a good idea, but no one expects Goop to be affordable or for the masses, least of all everyone who goes to Target and knows what they want. If you’re looking for a moisturizer and one of the celebs offering it has a dodgy history with pseudoscience and also radiates “eat the poor,” why would you buy it?

Both skin care and apparel are crowded markets, even without celebrity brands in the mix. Where once everyone was following Gwyneth, now everyone is following Rihanna and Fenty Beauty and Skin are killing it. Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty is also a billion dollar brand. A lot of celebrities have tried and failed to make their brands in this field a success. It’s an expensive gamble, and even the biggest skincare addicts are hesitant to drop all that cash on a new product just because a famous name is attached. At least with a drink line, you can still get drunk.

If Goop survives, I think it will be owned by someone else. Puck he certainly seemed to think a sale could happen in the future, which would make Paltrow even richer and likely lead to more layoffs. Goop’s legacy is secure, but not in a great way. It was a landmark in modern celebrity branding, but it further legitimized entire branches of fake science, health bullshit, and quackery that were a step away from anti-vax propaganda. As much as Paltrow has tried to laugh off the criticism and embrace her “stupid white lady” image, the reverberations of bad science and health-driven fear are much stronger than a vaginal suppository.