After cohost Michael Che insists she actually explain what Ashwagandha is, Baskin struggles, saying that Paltrow visited the fictional country of Wakanda from Black Panther, and found it growing there, before she breaks down in a panic.
“I already got one probation and I can’t get another because second strike is Missouri,” she says. “Yeah, I have to go live in Missouri for a year, work at Bath & Body Works, and let my roots grow out, I can’t do it. My supervisor is here, can I bring her out? Fifer, Fifer can you come help me? Fifer, I need your help because I’m really afraid that Gwyneth’s gonna fire me.”
Her call for help is answered by Fifer, played by Paltrow, who founded Goop in 2008.
“No, she doesn’t believe in firing. Remember? It’s called conscious unemploying,” she jokes, referring to when she famously announced her split from Chris Martin in 2014 by saying they were “consciously uncoupling.”
But even with Fifer stepping in, things take a turn as she struggles to explain Goop’s new Himalayan salt scrub.
“So I’m just gonna take it from here Baskin, OK?” Fifer says. “We have a new Himalayan salt scrub and it is the No. 1 salt scrub. Rated No. 1 in overall salt. I mean, actually, I’d like to tell you what salt is instead.”
The two eventually joke that Goop stands for “Gwyneth Opens Our Paychecks,” before signing off with, “Wakanda forever,” a reference to Black Panther.
Asked by the New York Times earlier this month if she sees herself “as an actor who developed a career as a lifestyle entrepreneur, or a lifestyle entrepreneur who happened to have a career as an actor.”
Paltrow put it bluntly: “I was masquerading as an actor,” she said.