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Gwyneth Paltrow's Lifestyle Brand Goop Signs A Deal With Netflix

Vagina eggs and "medical mediums" coming straight to your screen.

Get ready, because your TV is about to get Goop'ed.

Gwnyeth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop has signed a deal with Netflix, Variety reported on Monday. The company will launch a documentary series this fall, featuring 30-minute episodes hosted by Paltrow and the website's chief content officer Elise Loehnen.

The episodes will feature doctors, researchers and experts who will "examine issues relating to physical and spiritual wellness."

"Gwyneth is a highly visual, tactile person. The quality of everything that we produce is very important to her," Loehnen told Variety. "She's always looking for white space. Whether it's developing physical products or thinking of content. With this show, I think she's only really interested in opportunities where we can uniquely be ourselves and do things potentially disruptive."

The brand has in fact been "disruptive" in the past, although not necessarily in the way they intended. In September, Goop was ordered to pay US$145,000 as part of a false advertising lawsuit. In turns out that spending nearly $100 on a jade egg and sticking it in your vagina does not in fact balance hormones, regulate menstrual cycles, or increase bladder control.

Goop's chief content officer Elise Loehnen, left, with Gwyneth Paltrow at the In Goop Health Summit in Culver City, CA on June 9, 2018.
Emma McIntyre via Getty Images
Goop's chief content officer Elise Loehnen, left, with Gwyneth Paltrow at the In Goop Health Summit in Culver City, CA on June 9, 2018.

Actually, because jade is porous, it could cause bacterial vaginosis or even toxic shock syndrome, Canadian gynecologist Jen Gunter pointed out on her blog. Despite the lawsuit, the jade egg is still for sale on Goop's website.

Gunter, who's made it her mission to debunk bad Goop medical advice, had some exciting news of her own in response to Paltrow's: she seems to be developing a show of her own. According to her Twitter account, the "first season" of a show has been shot and is currently in edits, although she added that she couldn't say any more for now.

Some of Goop's other dubious health claims include coffee enemas, getting stung by bees to remove inflammation, and using infrared and mugwort steam to "cleanse" your vagina.

And not to belabour the point, but we wonder if any of these "experts" who have been previously endorsed by Goop will show up in the show. Maybe the "spiritual intimacy coach" who suggested a "sacred snake ceremony" for better sex? Maybe the naturopathic homeopath who uses the title "doctor" despite never having attended medical school who suggested a raw goat milk diet to get rid of parasites? (Unpasteurized goat milk can in fact cause parasites in some cases.)

Paltrow also includes advice from a "medical medium" who uses "his gift" to "read" people's conditions to tell them how to recover their health. He also boasts that he's "the originator of the Global Celery Juice Movement."

Theda Phoenix leads a Sound Healing class at the In Goop Health summer in Vancouver's Stanley Park on October 28, 2018.
Ernesto Distefano via Getty Images
Theda Phoenix leads a Sound Healing class at the In Goop Health summer in Vancouver's Stanley Park on October 28, 2018.

Goop has clearly tapped into a desire for the indistinct, nebulous and corruptible category of "wellness." The brand is now reportedly worth nearly $330 million, and in addition to the website and branded products, it includes a podcast, several cookbooks and international wellness summits. The company also plans to produce two new standalone podcasts, one a partnership with Delta Air Lines and the other with Goop's beauty director Jean Godfrey-June.

The Variety piece also notes that Goop's quarterly print magazine will go on hiatus during production on the show. If you're keeping track, that magazine was initially going to come out under the Condé Nast umbrella, but was dropped by the publishing giant because it refused to employ a fact-checker.

"We're never making statements," Paltrow told the New York Times magazine in defence of not hiring a fact-checker.

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