Gwyneth Paltrow Missed the Point of the Suspect Challenge
Gwyneth Paltrow is good at so much of what she does: acting, running Goop, testifying in court over a ski collision. However, Paltrow has never been great at Doing Things a Normal Person Would Do, which is especially apparent in Goop’s attempt to hop on a TikTok trend. The wellness brand had its founder try to do the Suspect Challenge, which usually involves two people ribbing each other back and forth in a way that run the gamut from playful to legitimately embarrassing. Before we watch Paltrow’s attempt, let’s look at a good one so we can all get on the same page about what this is supposed to be:
The trend is simple: One person films the “suspect” jogging and calls them out for something as though they’re the police sharing an identifying characteristic. Then you switch roles. “Suspect is built like an American Girl doll” is kind of the perfect example of what this is supposed to be. Now, here’s Paltrow’s version:
It’s impressive how bungled this whole thing is. It completely misses the spirit of the challenge. (She should’ve taken notes from Kristin Cavallari.) Besides the fact that she’s doing it alone while standing still in a restaurant, she’s also not nearly embarrassed enough. “Suspect has dated all the Brads in Hollywood” is not only factually incorrect (Bradley Cooper erasure!), but is followed by Paltrow clinking two martinis together. The most damning part of this is supposed to be … what? That she ate a French dip at the Corner Store even though she’s on the paleo diet? That she kissed Timothée Chalamet for a movie? This is not about bragging!
What’s annoying here is that Paltrow could have delivered an A-plus performance: Suspect can’t even remember which Marvel movies she’s in. Suspect thinks that meditating with your eyes open could be “potentially important for changing the world.” Suspect sold a candle that smelled like her vagina and then it exploded. We would have all loved that. Instead, we got the tidbit that Paltrow doesn’t like people staying in her house too late. Okay. Wake me up when it’s something actually juicy, like, “Suspect actually thinks Saving Private Ryan deserved Best Picture over Shakespeare in Love.”
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