Gwyneth Paltrow Reportedly Had Feelings for Another Actor While Dating Brad Pitt as the Real Reason for Their Split Is Finally Revealed
A new book offers a rare insight into one of Hollywood’s hottest couples of the ’90s. Amy Odell’s book Gwyneth: The Biography recounts Gwyneth Paltrow‘s high-key romance with Brad Pitt and what ultimately led to their split.
The Iron Man actress met Pitt in 1994 after meeting on the set of Se7en. According to Odell, Paltrow had a tough time choosing to star in Se7en or the comedy film Feeling Minnesota. “She consulted with a friend, who said, ‘Well, who do you want to date, Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves?’ Gwyneth chose Se7en and Pitt, and Cameron Diaz took the Feeling Minnesota part.”
The stars were committed to a high-profile romance on and off set. The two were spotted walking “around the set holding hands” and smoking “cigarettes together outside their trailers, Gwyneth holding hers like a thirties movie star,” Odell wrote.
He even got the approval of her whole circle. “Her dad [Bruce Paltrow] loved Brad,” says Odell. “Her friends loved Brad. They thought he was the nicest guy.”
Why did Gwyneth Paltrow & Brad Pitt break up?
Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt mainly broke up due to irreconcilable differences and the way they were raised. They called off their engagement in 1996. “Brad and I have very different upbringings,” she told an interviewer. “So when we go to restaurants and order caviar, I have to say to Brad ‘This is beluga and this is osetra.’”
“He was brought up very religious, in Missouri,” says Odell. “It’s just a very different world from hers, growing up in Manhattan, going to Spence, I think she thought he wasn’t sophisticated enough for her. She thought she was smarter, better educated, more sophisticated.”
Things reached a peak when Paltrow admitted that she had a crush on another Hollywood star when she was filming Emma. “Gwyneth expressed doubts to a crew member that Pitt was right for her, and admitted she had a crush on Hugh Grant,” Odell claimed.
She also regularly went over to her friend Kevyn Aucoin’s house and “cried about Pitt multiple times,” Odell wrote. “He wanted to be with her but seemed to feel threatened by her success and all the attention she received.” Aucoin gave Paltrow frank advice: “You really need to end this,” Odell wrote that he told her.
“It was the right thing at that time, but it was really hard,” Paltrow explained the reasoning behind their breakup in a 2023 appearance on Call Her Daddy. “There were a number of things that had happened, he was nine years older than me — he knew what he wanted, he was ready to do it and I was kind of all over the place.”
“So it was really one of those difficult things, where I felt like, ‘Oh my God, not only am I not ready, I’m not living up to the standards again.’ It was a familiar refrain I felt about myself,” she added. She doesn’t have any hard feelings for the F1 actor. “He’s a great guy,” she said. “He’s wonderful. I really like him a lot.”
Paltrow later married Chris Martin of Coldplay in 2003 before calling things off in 2016. She’s currently married to Brad Fulchuk, who she thinks is the right Brad for her. “I finally found the Brad I was supposed to marry. It just took me 20 years.” Pitt is currently in a relationship with Ines de Ramon after his marriages to Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston.
