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Editor’s note: Claims about Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow below are drawn from Amy Odell’s unauthorised Gwyneth: The Biography. Paltrow herself has not accused Pitt of abuse. References to Angelina Jolie and Pitt are sourced to court filings and reporting; Pitt has denied those allegations.
THE RUNDOWN:
- Journalist Amy Odell’s new unauthorised autobiography Gwyneth: The Biography details several of the actor and entrepreneur’s high-profile relationships
- Paltrow dated and was briefly engaged to Brad Pitt after connecting with him on the set of the thriller Se7en in 1994, when she was 22 and Pitt was 31,
- The biography has surfaced previously unheard claims that Paltrow’s close friend, legendary makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, voiced concerns that Pitt was emotionally and verbally abusive to Paltrow during their relationship.
In 1996, Brad Pitt, aged 32, won a Golden Globe for his supporting role in 12 Monkeys. At the end of his acceptance speech, onlookers caught their breath as he thanked his girlfriend, emerging star Gwyneth Paltrow, in a sweet speech: “[Especially] the love of o’ my life, my angel, Gwyneth Paltrow.” Broadcast cameras zoomed in on 23-year-old Paltrow seated in the audience, dressed in an elegant black-and-white Calvin Klein sheath dress; she looked down, placed her hand to her heart, then raised her eyes to Pitt before joining the applause.
It was a deeply romantic moment, and in 1996—Pitt at a heartthrob peak—Paltrow was the envy of many women. The couple had been dating for two years, and Pitt had surprised her with a proposal just a few months earlier. But according to disturbing allegations in Amy Odell’s new biography Gwyneth: The Biography, behind closed doors things were less than rosy.
How Brad Pitt And Gwyneth Paltrow Met
Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow first met when she read for Legends of the Fall. Director Ed Zwick ultimately thought the 21-year-old was “too young” for a 30-something character, but he—and Pitt—remembered the chemistry. When David Fincher was casting Se7en, Paltrow circled the role. According to Odell, while she weighed the small-screen-time wife role in Se7en against Feeling Minnesota opposite Keanu Reeves, a friend joked, “Well, who do you want to date, Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves?” She chose Se7en. Soon, they were one of Hollywood’s hottest couples.
Outwardly, he seemed like the perfect boyfriend. He charmed cast and crew on Emma; her father, producer Bruce Paltrow, couldn’t believe his daughter had nabbed “f*cking Brad Pitt.” He played knight in shining armour when, as Paltrow later alleged, Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed and bullied her: Pitt confronted the producer after she told him what happened. (Paltrow later became a key source in the Weinstein exposé by The New York Times and was praised by reporters Jodi Kantor and Rachel Abrams as on of the first actresses to go on record, and corral other sources) The same year as that picture-perfect Globes moment, her first American Vogue cover heralded Paltrow as “The Luckiest Girl Alive,” with a Meisel-shot feature that included a shot of Pitt kissing her in the rain.
Did Brad Pitt Emotionally Abuse Gwyneth Paltrow? Kevyn Aucoin’s Allegations
Odell reports that as Paltrow’s fame accelerated after Emma, friends worried. Paltrow grew close to legendary makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin; his Chelsea apartment became one of the few places she could drop the ice-queen façade and be herself. Odell writes that “after Emma came out, Gwyneth went over to Aucoin’s place and cried about Pitt multiple times,” and that—according to someone with knowledge of Aucoin’s thinking—Pitt “might be verbally and emotionally abusive.”
Odell’s reporting also paints a picture of a 23-year-old star “eager to please” her older boyfriend. Hairstylist Alyson Murphy, interviewed for the book, recalls, “There were some things, I’m like, Okay, I really probably didn’t need to know that about Brad Pitt,” describing Paltrow asking the hair and makeup team for guidance on everything from bikini waxing to “how to handle being in a relationship” and seem “more feminine.” According to Odell, the dynamic felt uneven as Paltrow’s star rose: “He wanted to be with her but seemed to feel threatened by her success and all the attention she received.”
Aucoin’s verdict was brutal. “You really need to end this.” (Odell notes the relationship could be volatile; she reports Pitt allegedly made comments about outfits being too revealing, while Paltrow feared losing the leverage and public security of being “Brad Pitt’s girlfriend.”)
What Gwyneth Paltrow Has Said About Brad Pitt?
Publicly, Paltrow has been generous about Pitt. In 2018, she told Howard Stern he was “gorgeous and sweet,” adding, “I wasn’t ready; he was too good for me.” She also praised Pitt for coming to her defence when he threatened Harvey Weinstein, whom she’d accused of sexually harassing and bullying her. “He said, ‘If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I’ll kill you,’” she recalled Pitt telling Weinstein.
“It was so fantastic,” she added. “He leveraged his fame and power to protect me at a time when I didn’t have fame or power yet.”
On Call Her Daddy, she said Affleck was “technically excellent,” but with Pitt, she had a “love at first sight” connection.
Privately, Odell writes, Paltrow was more cutting. When he became engaged to Friends star Jennifer Aniston, Paltrow told friends she was sad—and told several people he had “terrible taste in women.” In a conversation with Aerin Lauder, she described Pitt as “dumber than a sack of shit.” Today, Paltrow and Aniston are friendly; in a recent Vanity Fair cover story Aniston said the pair still “gossip” about Pitt. “Oh, of course. How can we not? We’re girls.”
The Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt Allegations
Kevyn Aucoin’s reported comments about Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow’s relationship make up a very small part of Odell’s 448-page book, which was compiled from over 200 interviews. But they’ve come in the context of the allegations levelled at Pitt by ex-wife Angelina Jolie and their children.
All this lands amid years of reporting on Angelina Jolie’s allegations against Pitt. In court filings and FBI documents obtained by media outlets, Jolie alleged that during a 2016 private-jet flight, Pitt grabbed her by the head and pushed her into a bathroom wall; in a later filing, she alleged he “choked” one child and “struck” another when they intervened. (The FBI and LA authorities investigated; no charges were filed. Pitt has denied the allegations. The FBI closed its inquiry.)
Though Jolie and Pitt reached a divorce settlement approved by a Los Angeles judge in December 2024, their separate business fight over Château Miraval continues; a judge recently ordered disclosures related to alleged abuse in that civil case, even as other rulings moved Pitt’s claims closer to trial. Reporting has also noted that public family estrangement remains a theme. His son Pax slammed Pitt on Instagram on Father’s Day 2020, calling him a “terrible and despicable person” and “world-class asshole”. “You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell,” he wrote. According to reports, he has visitation with his two youngest children, twins Knox and Vivienne, but has “virtually no contact” with his adult children Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh.
Despite the scathing allegations, recent press around Pitt has been called out for its sycophancy. In the past month, a widely shared Vulture essay argued that Pitt’s F1 press tour was doubling as image rehab for its problematic star, designed to “obscure.. the alleged violent particulars” of his behaviour towards his ex-wife and his children. Around the same time as the Vulture article, a New York Times guest essay headlined “God Bless Brad Pitt” celebrated him as one of the last great movie stars.
Odell’s chapters won’t change what Paltrow has (and hasn’t) said publicly about Pitt. But they do reframe that famous 1996 cutaway—the hand to her heart, the “angel” on the broadcast—against a murkier private reality alleged by those around her.
The post Kevyn Aucoin’s Concerns That Brad Pitt Emotionally Abused Gwyneth Paltrow Have Surfaced In Biography appeared first on ELLE.
