Entertainment

Is Gwyneth Running a Corrupt Company?

There's more to Goop than meets the eye, and it might not all be entirely legal. After Goop CEO Seb Bishop suspiciously jumped ship last week, the media began probing into the possible reason why. Now documents obtained by Radar Online have revealed that Goop was bleeding money. But here's the kicker: while the company was suffering, Gwyneth Paltrow and Bishop's pay was actually going up. Are you as shocked as I am that Paltrow may not have been running her business by the books?

I mean, this is the person who said she would rather die than let her kids eat chemical-ridden Cup-a-Soup. To read anything that might suggest there's a shady side to Paltrow is surprising, but numbers don't lie. So if these documents are legit, Paltrow has some explaining to do.

The papers detail the company's finances from 2011 and 2012, and show that the company lost $255,500 in 2011 and $39,850 in 2012. But during that time, Paltrow and Bishop received sizable pay increases from about $200,000 to almost $600,000. Plus, in 2012 they both got personal interest-free loans. Bishop has paid back a portion of his loan, but Paltrow hasn't paid back a penny of her $49,000 loan despite running her company into debt to borrow the cash.

Goop's 2013 documents are not yet available, so perhaps the company did exceedingly well and was able to pay back its $1.2 million debt. And hey, I could maybe believe that's what happened, but Bishop's sudden exit makes me wonder. One source told Us Weekly the situation was very suspicious, but another source tried to explain Bishop's exit saying, “There is speculation that he and Paltrow disagreed on the direction of Goop, partly that she used the website as a vehicle for her personal life, and the ‘conscious uncoupling’ announcement.”

If you ask me, that's the weakest reason to quit a company ever. If anything, her uncoupling announcement made Goop matter again. Shortly after writing the blog post the site crashed because so many people were visiting the page and Goop was all over the news. For a website that usually only surfaces when they announce their crazy gift guide every year, this gave the company a huge boost in traffic. Was it annoying for the CEO to see Paltrow use it as a "vehicle for her personal life?" Yes, probably. But worth quitting over? Not in my opinion.

Ultimately, the circumstances surrounding the CEO's sudden exit and Goop's finances look fishy and Paltrow seems to be mixed up in it. Will this tarnish her prim and proper persona and turn her into our next Martha Stewart? It seems like that's entirely possible. But don't expect her to take this document leak sitting down.

She'll probably jump back on Goop to write another blog post, explaining the "real" reason Bishop and Goop are consciously uncoupling, since that's her favorite place to talk about her life. We await her explanation, because right now she's not looking good.

Bustle reached out to Paltrow's rep and is awaiting response.

Image: Tumblr/bricesander