Gwyneth Paltrow once woke up in a London hotel convinced she was having a heart attack – and froze in panic, completely forgetting the emergency number.
The terrifying episode came as she was still grappling with the death of her father Bruce Paltrow in 2002 – a loss that would linger in her personal life and shape her career choices.
‘I felt like I was going to die of grief,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast.
‘There was one night where I woke up and I thought I was having a heart attack in London. And the only reason I didn’t call an ambulance was ’cause I didn’t know it’s 999 [in Britain] not 911 [as in America]. I was so racked with grief.’
Paltrow survived the terrifying night and, still grappling with her grief, threw herself into portraying tragic poet Sylvia Plath in the 2003 film Sylvia.
‘It [Sylvia] kind of saved my life … It’s really the way that I process through things. It’s the way I access the darker parts of myself that I don’t like that much and let them come up and out, she explained.
Gwyneth Paltrow revealed she once woke up in a London hotel convinced she was having a heart attack – and froze in panic, completely forgetting the emergency number
The terrifying episode came as she was still grappling with the death of her father Bruce Paltrow in 2002- a loss that would linger in her personal life and shape her career choices; (pictured with Bruce in 1999)
‘It was such a blessing having to get up every day and have somewhere to go … Just to have the structure of the day so have somewhere to get up and go and all day long I was just mining it [the grief] and letting it out and letting it out. And listening to Sigur Ros and sobbing and letting it out and it really saved me.’
Just weeks after her father’s death, Gwyneth met Coldplay star Chris Martin, eventually moving to the UK with him.
The pair had two children, Apple, 21, and Moses, 19, before splitting in 2014 after a decade of marriage.
The actress famously announced the split using the phrase ‘consciously uncoupling’ — a move that drew attention, controversy, and apparently cost her a movie role.
Speaking on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, she said: ‘I was meant to do a movie and it was right after the conscious uncoupling thing with Chris.
‘That was great because I was getting a divorce and then I got fired, that was so awesome.’
Gwyneth admitted she understood why some people bristled at the phrase, particularly those who had experienced nasty divorces themselves.
‘Say you’d had a really nasty divorce or your parents had a nasty divorce and then you hear, it doesn’t have to be done this way. Is the inference that I messed someone up? I do understand why it was so personal for people.
‘There was one night where I woke up and I thought I was having a heart attack in London. And the only reason I didn’t call an ambulance was ’cause I didn’t know it’s 999 [in Britain] not 911 [as in America]. I was so racked with grief,’ (pictured in 2002)
‘You only see that kind of reaction when it’s personal. When we’re hurt, we say things we don’t mean. We get angry, we respond. That’s humanity.’
Paltrow also opened up about a guilty pleasure she plans to revisit in the future: smoking.
The Goop mogul, famous for her health-conscious empire and clean-living image, admitted she’s always had a soft spot for cigarettes.
Chatting with Poehler, Paltrow revealed she’s already daydreaming about her next puff.
‘Remember cigarettes,’ Poehler said with a nostalgic sigh. ‘We know they’re very bad for you, but God, we came up in a good time.’
‘You know, I decided when I’m like 87 I’m going to start smoking again,’ Paltrow admitted.
Poehler joined in, recalling, ‘I remember when we were in the 2000s when there was a lot of that and then also you were the first person to say the word macrobiotic.’
‘That was a great phase where it was like cigarettes and tofu with the brown rice and the seaweed,’ Gwyneth laughed.
Paltrow survived the terrifying night and, still grappling with her grief, threw herself into portraying tragic poet Sylvia Plath in the 2003 film Sylvia
Just weeks after her father’s death, Gwyneth met Coldplaystar Chris Martin, eventually moving to the UK with him; (pictured 2014)
Poehler added her own quip, comparing it to ‘cleaning your house while it’s on fire.’
Paltrow previously revealed she last smoked on the night of her wedding to Brad Falchuk in 2018.
‘Oh, sadly, I remember it well,’ she told Vogue in October 2025. ‘It was the night we got married seven years ago.’
She continued, ‘We were redoing our paperwork and I got life insurance, and it said that if anything happened to me and they knew that I had smoked a cigarette, it would nullify the whole thing.
‘Because I’m such an [personality type] Enneagram 1 – which is like, “integrity is everything” – I never smoked again. I miss it, though.’
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