Gwyneth Paltrow reveals she got COVID as early as last February but kept it quiet

It’s a strange case of life imitating art. 

Gwyneth Paltrow revealed in a Saturday interview with The Hollywood Reporter that she came down with a case of COVID-19 all the way back in February of last year, just as the world was starting to pay major attention to pandemic-related news and quarantine preparation. 

However, the 48-year-old actress, who starred in Steven Soderbergh‘s prescient 2011 film Contagion, explained to the publication why she didn’t publicize her diagnosis at the time. 

‘I got it so early that there weren’t COVID tests available,’ the Oscar winner said. 

‘We couldn’t even get tested for a long time, and by the time we were able to get antibody tests and all of that, there were much graver, more important things going on in the world. I didn’t really feel the need to bring it up, but it was interesting.’ 

She also shared that she believes she contracted the virus while on a February 2020 trip to Paris, during which she ironically posted from the plane and referenced the Contagion film.

To add even more irony, Paltrow played the ‘patient zero’ character in that movie, which traced the onset of a much more lethal version of the coronavirus that the world has been battling over the past year and a half.

And even though she was not the first person to contract the coronavirus in real life, Gwyneth has been vocal about the lasting effects of what has been termed ‘long-haul covid’ via her lifestyle brand Goop.

In fact, the star has been the target of a fair amount of criticism for plugging various luxury products as unrealistic and out-of-touch ways to battle the lasting effects of the illness. 

However, the mother of two does not let any of it phaze her.

‘It’s usually that I always find it’s for their own amplification,’ she stated, of those who deride her. 

‘We really are not to say at Goop that we have never made mistakes, because of course we have in the past, but we’re very much in integrity and we’re careful about what we say. We always feel like we understand why a lot of that [criticism] becomes clickbait for people.’ 

Meanwhile, the Shakespeare In Love star recently told People that she ‘would of course be open’ to returning to acting… but with a caveat.

Gwyneth has largely stepped away from life in front of the camera over the last decade, in favor of serving as CEO for Goop.

She has only appeared in occasional Marvel films as Iron Man’s love interest Pepper Potts, along with a recent turn on the Netflix series The Politician, a show co-created by her husband Brad Falchuk.

‘I think if it was a small part that I could do in like a day or two, I would of course be open to that,’ Paltrow allowed.