​Gwyneth Paltrow on Her Critics: ‘It Doesn’t Matter’​​

By:
November 2, 2013

Gwyneth Paltrow critics are taking a beating from the actress after she told them to take a hike and a waste of energy. As Paltrow gets older, she cares less of what people think of her, a defiance she punctuates with expletives several times in a frank new interview.

“The older I get, I realize it doesn’t matter what people who don’t know you think. It doesn’t matter. You’re wasting your energy,” PEOPLE’s 2013 Most Beautiful Woman tells the British magazine Red’s December issue.

“It’s like, if your partner comes to you — or your best friend — and says, ‘Listen, I want to talk about something you did that hurt me, or I think you could improve,’ sit down and listen to what they have to say. But some friend of so-and-sos — it’s like, who gives a s——?”

The Oscar winner’s comments come in the wake of reports that Vanity Fair is preparing to publish an unflattering profile of the actress.

It’s just gossip, says Paltrow, 41. “That’s why I really don’t read anything,” she tells Red. “If it’s important, it filters down to me.”Paltrow also hits out at women who judge other women. “Nobody else can tell [a woman] how many hours a week she needs to devote to this, that or the other … F—— what anybody else says … It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. That’s what we’ve got to let go of. That idea of ‘Oh god, if I don’t show up to this concert, all the other mums are going to think I’m terrible.’ Well, so f——ing what.”

The actress says she gives everything to her kids when she’s with them, and everything to her career when she’s not.

“That’s my work/life balance,” she says. “I’ve made it work for me, but it doesn’t matter what my specific thing is … It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It matters what you think of yourself. And what your children think … So if anyone is going to ask my advice, I’d say, do what is right for you, and don’t give a s— what anyone else thinks.”