August 30, 2005

Call the Doctor: Gwyneth Suffers from Madonna-itis

Madonna-itis: [n] The overwhelming urge for celebrities who, having attained fame and fortune, feel the need to preach to others about child rearing, personal relationships, and other lifestyle issuesÑeven if they themselves quite publicly made poor choices in the past. It seems that Gwyneth Paltrow has a severe case of Madonna-itis. In a Time Magazine interview, Paltrow chides Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston regarding the extreme publicity surrounding the coupleÕs recent divorce.

"It would have been a lot easier on Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston now if they had not talked to the press about each other and everything to begin with," Paltrow says in this week's Time magazine, currently on newsstands.

The 32-year-old actress went through heavy tabloid coverage herself when she dated Pitt in the nineties. She and Pitt broke off their engagement in 1997.

"I learned my lesson at 24," Paltrow says of the public relationship.

Ah, to be so wise. You know, if she really cared about the situation, she might have given one of them a jingle and offered her advice when the whole thing was blowing up around them, rather than after the fact. And she conveniently ignores the fact that even if Pitt and Aniston hadnÕt themselves talked to the press, there are plenty of people who would. Celebrities do not live in a vacuum. ItÕs one of the prices of fame, and one that they seem to acceptÑeven if they moan and groan about it all the time.

While the fame of Pitt and Aniston may be at a peak, Paltrow sounds almost ready for quiet retirement.

"Everything I wanted to achieve, I achieved," says Paltrow. "I'm not one of those people who keeps raising the bar."

To have achieved it all at the tender age of 32 is truly amazing. Of course, if sheÕs Òalmost ready for quiet retirement,Ó why is she doing the interview thing? Oh thatÕs right, she has a movie coming out in a few weeks and wants to drum up publicityÑever so subtly, of course. Motherhood seems to have had an amazing effect on her. No more of the fast lane for Gwynnie! Like Madonna, she is living the quiet life in England with her English hubby, and seems quite eager to forget she achieved all of her fame and fortune in ÒvulgarÓ America.

I wonder if her disdain for Òraising the barÓ applies to her bank account too.

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