It isn’t unusual for divorces in Hollywood to get a lot of media attention but there
was one divorce in particular that broke the internet.
When Gwyneth Paltrow announced her divorce from Chris Martin on her blog Goop , it literally
crashed with all the responses.
And for good reason, the couple was together for 11 years and that is a long relationship
while dealing with the stresses of Hollywood.
The weirdest part about this couple’s divorce came AFTER they split, though.
Paltrow even said her ex-husband is like her brother now!
The couple’s meeting was full of rumors BEFORE they had even met.
That’s right, they hadn’t even met yet and the public was obsessed with the idea
of them together.
Paltrow said, “It’s funny because people had started writing that we were going out
and we had never even met.”
How bizarre is that?
Well, apparently not that bizarre.
Allegedly Gwyneth was supposed to be a guest at one of his concerts but when she didn’t
show up, Chris said, “Oh, this is for my girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.”
It doesn’t take much for rumors to spiral from there, right?
When the couple did finally meet, it was in 2002 at one of Chris’s Coldplay concerts.
It came at a very challenging time for Gwyneth because just three weeks earlier, she had
lost her father and she was still dealing with the aftermath of his death.
The pair started dating almost immediately after they met and as a part of the actress’s
healing, Chris had written two songs for and about her.
Fix You and Swallow are two songs that have the ability to break your heart and he wrote
them for her to get through the pain of her father’s death.
But what is a Hollywood love story without a shotgun wedding?
Just a year after they met, the couple secretly eloped and got married in California.
It was so secretive, in fact, that not even Paltrow’s mom was at the ceremony.
They got married of course because they were madly in love, but also because two days before
the wedding, they had announced they were expecting a baby!
The pair were really good at moving fast because a couple of months after their wedding, they
gave birth to their daughter, Apple.
Like every Hollywood couple, they went for an unusual name for their child and even Oprah
Winfrey ( was confused by the choice.
She asked Gwyneth why that name and Paltrow said it was because the name was sweet, clean,
and perfect.
I’m sure that’s what we all think when we look at an apple!
2 years later, the couple welcomed their son, Moses nd he was named after a song Chris wrote
for Gwyneth before their wedding.
The couple always kept their marriage and kids extremely private.
So private that they never even walked down the red carpet together.
But, in 2009, rumors began to spiral that the couple had split because they hadn’t
been seen together in a while.
The actress spoke about how a lack of publicity didn’t equate to them having marital problems
and even said, “It doesn’t behoove us to be a public couple.
He certainly doesn’t want to be that.
We’ve never ever walked down a red carpet together, we never will.
If people think that that means we’re not together, then — ha ha ha!
– so be it."
We can understand that.
But a year later, it seems that those rumors may have gotten Paltrow thinking about her
marriage.
In 2010, four years before they announced their divorce, she spoke about her realization
that her marriage was over.
The couple went on a trip for her 38th birthday to a storybook cottage and she knew despite
the long walks, longer lie-ins, big glasses of Barolo and the hands held - her marriage
was over.
She even said, “What I do remember is that it felt almost involuntary, like the ring
of a bell that has sounded and cannot be undone.
I was successful at turning the volume down on that knowledge.
It would be years until we said the words aloud.
But, that weekend, a dam had cracked just enough to hear.
And it grew louder until it was all I could hear."
In 2014, she announced that she and Chris were splitting on her blog Goop.
It was a separation that broke the internet and had millions of fans mourning the loss
of an iconic Hollywood couple.
In her blog post, she had used a term their couple’s therapist had used, which was “conscious
uncoupling”.
This term had a lot of people raising eyebrows and wondering what it meant.
It seemed like a way to dim down a tragic breaking up of a family but Gwyneth cleared
this up for everyone.
It’s a term that describes the ability to look within oneself and realize problems within
a relationship that are caused by yourself and need healing.
She was vocal about her divorce and the term conscious uncoupling and said, "Frankly, the
term sounded a bit full of itself, painfully progressive and hard to swallow.
It's very different for every couple but, for me, it meant, more than anything, being
accountable for my own part in the dissolution of the relationship.”
She was intrigued by the sentiment of the phrase because it meant that her family would
stay together even if she and Chris weren’t together as a couple.
She also noted how the couple had always kept their relationship private and hoped they
could do the same through their divorce.
They wanted it private so they could heal, their kids could heal, and they could co-parent
positively.
Her conscious uncoupling term also meant they could have a positive divorce.
She wanted to stay in love with the parts of Chris that she was always in love with.
She didn’t want toxicity and hate to be the central part of their divorce so she reminded
herself of everything that she loved about her ex-husband because, for a long time, she
did love him right?
She thinks people lose the nuance of life by either making it all good or all bad, why
not lean into the unfamiliarity and balance it all out?
She said, "Family structure can be reinvented and divorce doesn't have to be devastating.
It doesn't have to be the end of your relationship with somebody.
I think Chris and I were meant to be together and have our kids.
But our relationship is much better like this: friends and co-parents and family.”
In 2015, they filed for divorce and by 2016 it was finalized, but according to court documents,
they had been separated since early 2013.
The ink wasn’t even dry on their divorce papers before Gwyneth moved on.
In fact, they didn’t even have divorce papers yet!
In 2014, she met Brad Falchuk) on the set of Glee and by 2017, the couple were engaged
and a year later they were married.
The actress seems to be more than content and happy with her new husband and not only
that, but Chris loves her new beau!
Chris started dating Dakota Johnson 0:00) in 2017 and they still live together in a
house they bought.
Chris, Gwyneth, Brad and Dakota all vacation TOGETHER.
Gwyneth even invited Chris and Dakota on her honeymoon
with Brad!
We’re all for a healthy break up and blended family, but that may be a little too healthy.
Still, their amicable divorce may be the blueprint for many on how to keep a strong friendship
with your ex-spouse even after the romance fizzles out.
Paltrow even pushed Martin to reconcile with Dakota after they had briefly split because
as an insider said, “Gwyneth is happy if Chris is happy.
She only wants the best for him.”
The pair also take co-parenting extremely seriously and they have managed to keep their
family together even though they are apart.
They see and talk to each other every single day as friends and co-parents because they
believe they need to keep their commitment to each other in order to put their children
first.
It’s because of that sentiment that their children didn’t struggle through the negatives
a divorce usually brings to the table.
Instead, they saw that their parents still loved each other but more as friends than
as a couple.
Gwyneth has even said that the relationship she and Chris have is more like a relationship
with a brother.
Could that be pushing it?
We aren’t sure how many people have kids with their brother, Gwyneth!
She even added, “Chris is like my brother.
You know, he's my family.
I love him.”
She added that she remains grateful for the relationship they shared because it gave them
their 2 children.
Although she said she never wanted to be divorced from the father of her children, it worked
out well.
They both learned a lot more about themselves through the process.
She was even grateful for learning how to be accountable for her side of things that
led to the divorce because it led her to her current husband, Brad.
Although Gwyneth’s brand Goop doesn’t give her the best public status, we can say
that as an ex-wife and mother, she seems to be very insightful.
It truly does seem that Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow have made their relationship after
their divorce better than their marriage.
Between maintaining a friendship, co-parenting, and being friends with one another’s new
love interests; could they have cracked the code to a happy divorce?
And is that code called conscious uncoupling?