Justice for Gwyneth Paltrow! The former Avengers and Shakespeare in Love star is one nepo baby that Cockburn has no trouble defending.
Paltrow has had a tough PR week.
First, she was vilified for her rather meager diet. Paltrow said on a podcast that she skips breakfast, sips coffee and bone broth in the afternoon, and eats a paleo meal with “lots of vegetables” for dinner. Yes, our Goop queen is looking a bit frail these days, but can we blame a gal who rose to prominence during the Kate-Moss-heroin-chic era? Even Jessica Simpson is still recovering from being called “Jumbo Jessica” in 2009 when she appeared on stage with a slight muffin top.
Paltrow also finds her skinny self in court this week over a near-decade old skiing accident at the Deer Valley resort in Utah. Seventy-six-year-old Terry Sanderson claims that Paltrow crashed into him on the slopes, causing a traumatic brain injury and several broken ribs. Sanderson’s previously sued Miss Paltrow for $3.1 million. A judge threw out that claim, and now Sanderson is seeking damages of about $300,000.
The sales of Gwyneth’s vagina-scented candles alone could probably cover that sum, so why has she chosen to engage in this costly and lengthy legal fight rather than settle? The simplest explanation is that Sanderson is attempting a shake down.
Gwyneth claims the exact opposite of Sanderson; that Sanderson skiied into her at the bougie resort and that she stopped to make sure he was OK before carrying on. Paltrow’s ski instructor also blamed Sanderson for the crash, and asked Sanderson’s friend the day of the incident if he knew “that your buddy just took out Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Are we really to believe that the bony blonde was able to crash into Sanderson so aggressively on a bunny hill slope that he was rendered unconscious and suffered multiple cracked ribs — and that if his injuries were so severe, he would wave off ski patrol?
Sanderson, a retired optometrist who enjoys a rather lavish lifestyle himself, has somehow managed to paint himself as David versus the Goliath Gwyneth. His legal team argues that symptoms of his alleged brain injury consist of not being able to enjoy wine tastings and forgetting what he was supposed to purchase during a trip to Home Depot. Traumatic, indeed.
The trouble for Sanderson is that he apparently had a history of neurological issues prior to the crash, “lost” the GoPro footage of the incident and was apparently quite charmed by the fact that the accident made him “famous.”
Bitter spectators might assume Gwyneth is the type of person to run off after obliterating an old man on the slopes because she peddles bizarre ideas of wellness to the one-percent. All Cockburn sees is an ingenious entrepreneur — and he thinks it’s shameful that Sanderson would try to take advantage of Gwyneth the way she does other rich white women.
