These days, fans are constantly updated on celebrities' lives, whether that's via stars uploading their own content on social media or via paparazzi pictures quickly ending up online. But, in the 1990s this wasn't the case, which Gwyneth Paltrow reflected on fondly in a recent interview. While appearing on The Late Late Show on Jan. 9, Paltrow remembered how celebrities could party, do drugs, and hook up in the '90s without the juicy details ever getting out to the public. The actor didn't reveal exactly how she took advantage of that relative anonymity, but it's clear that those days were a far different time than now for a big star like herself. Read on to see what she had to say.
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Paltrow one of the hottest stars of the '90s.
Everett Collection / ShutterstockObviously, Paltrow is still very famous today, but in the '90s, she was more known as a movie star than a lifestyle brand maven. During the decade, she starred in films including Se7en, Emma, Sliding Doors, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1999 for her performance in Shakespeare in Love. And she dated other famous stars of the day, including Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck.
She and other celebrities could party without consequences.
On The Late Late Show, Paltrow appeared alongside Hilary Swank, who had said earlier in the interview that she wanted to buy an old band van, which led to host James Corden making a joke about cocaine.
Later, Corden asked Paltrow about life in the '90s and she responded, "It was great. I mean, talk about doing cocaine and not getting caught."
She continued, "Like, you could just be at a bar and be, like, having fun, dance on a table ... No camera phones. Especially in New York, interestingly enough, there were no paparazzi. You could stumble out of a bar and go home with some rando and no one would know."
Paltrow opened up about her drug experiences in the past.
Everett Collection / ShutterstockIn a 2019 interview with the podcast Armchair Expert, Paltrow got more detailed about her own time experimenting with drugs.
"I never really did drugs. I mean, I tried a couple of things ... I've never done mushrooms, I've never done acid," the actor said."I did MDMA once ... I feel like it was more of a shamanic experience. I had a lot of trauma come up, and I was crying. I think it was productive, but it wasn't like, I'm at a rave, you know, with my shirt off."
She also said that she once smoked too much marijuana and felt she was hallucinating. "It really freaked me out," she explained. "I'm just not a good drugs person."
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She's especially grateful the media wasn't around during one high-profile breakup.
Diane Freed / Stringer / Getty ImagesPaltrow knows how different fame is for young stars now.
"Cameron Diaz and I talk about this all the time. We’re like, 'Thank God in the early ’90s there were [so few] paparazzi. Thank God,'" Paltrow toldWSJ. magazine in 2018. "We cry in gratitude that no one was following us around and seeing what we were doing."
She pointed out that her 1997 split from ex-fiancé Pitt would have gone much differently for her if it happened in another era. "I remember when Brad Pitt and I broke up, it was on the cover of the New York Post and there was no one outside my house," the star explained. "That would never happen today."
