Gwyneth: I'm Self Made

Gwyneth Paltrow

GWYNETH PALTROW may hail from Hollywood royalty - her late father was the director Bruce Paltrow and her mother is the actress Blythe Danner - but the star was not raised with a silver spoon in her mouth.


Gwyneth with her father Bruce and mother Blythe



"I've never taken a dime off my parents, I'm completely self-made," the Oscar-winning actress told Glamour US, explaining that her parents' tough-love approach taught her the value of money. "I went to UC Santa Barbara, and when I quit to try to be an actress, my dad was like, 'That's great, but I'm not gonna help you.' I was like, 'Yeah, right.' And he was like, 'No, I'm not.' So I got an apartment with a roommate; I worked as a hostess at a restaurant; I would scrounge quarters to buy Starbucks and walk there to save gas. I remember once asking my dad for money, like, 'Please, I'm really stuck. Can you help?' And he said, 'You're more than welcome to come over for dinner.' That was it."
It's not just Paltrow's financial past that she is happy to talk about. The actress - who is currently taking time off performing to concentrate her efforts on her 
Goop enterprise - has been vocal recently about the pay gap between men and women in Hollywood, calling the current situation "painful".
"Your salary is a way to quantify what you're worth," she told Variety, in an interview for its Power of Women  issue. "If men are being paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels shitty."