Oscar-winning actress and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow will reportedly take the stand at a trial where she is being accused of a hit-and-run incident at a Utah ski slope in 2016.
Paltrow was sued by retired optometrist Terry Sanderson in 2019; he alleged she plowed into him on Flagstaff Mountain, part of the Deer Valley Resort near Park City on a beginner’s course called the Bandana Run. Sanderson claimed he suffered a “permanent traumatic brain injury, four broken ribs, pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and disfigurement,” and that Paltrow “got up, turned and skied away,” leaving him “stunned, lying in the snow, seriously injured” without calling for help.
The “lawsuit is completely without merit … anyone who reads the facts will realize that,” a representative for Paltrow responded to the lawsuit. Paltrow filed a countersuit, asking for $1 and the costs of her legal expenses if she won.
Paltrow has called the lawsuit — which states that Deer Valley ski instructor Eric Christiansen didn’t see the incident but blamed Sanderson for the accident and filed a false report to buttress Paltrow’s version of events — “a meritless claim” and “an attempt to exploit her celebrity and wealth.” She has stated that she “remembers what happened very clearly.”
Paltrow’s countersuit stated that Sanderson admitted he didn’t remember the incident, and that Sanderson skied downhill into her in a “full body blow.” She claimed Christiansen saw the incident, that she was angry and that Sanderson apologized.
An acquaintance of Sanderson’s, Craig Ramon, claimed he saw the incident and Paltrow “landed right on top of him, and then she slides off to the side.” Paltrow “didn’t say a single word,” Ramon claimed, adding that she did not seek help.
Last July, Paltrow, who has made tens of millions of dollars with her lifestyle company Goop, explained the meaning behind Goop’s candle named “This Smells Like My Vagina.”
Paltrow introduced the product in 2020; it reportedly sold out within hours of it being available.
Paltrow, while visiting a Goop outlet in Sag Harbor, New York, explained of the candle on the show “Today,” “This candle is really like that provocation to say like, ‘It’s amazing to be a woman in every way. It’s amazing to have that kind of power and you deserve to have that agency.’”
In January 2020, Paltrow told late-night host Seth Myers, “It sort of started as a joke. I was with ‘the nose’ Douglas Little for his brand Heretic and we were sort of messing around and I smelled this beautiful thing and I was like, ‘This smells like my vagina!’ And I was kidding, obviously.”
“I think women, a lot of us have grown up feeling certain degrees of shame around our body or whatever,” Paltrow continued. “So this is just a little bit of, you know, a subversive candle for all of us out there.”