New Gwyneth Paltrow Biography Reveals Why She Chose Not to Have Children With Ex Luke Wilson originally appeared on Parade.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s relationship with Luke Wilson tends to get overshadowed by the fact that she dated, you know, Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. But her one-year romance with her Royal Tenenbaums costar, which neither party has ever publicly addressed in detail, wasn’t an insignificant chapter of her love life. In fact, according to the deliciously dishy new book, Gwyneth: The Biography, by journalist Amy Odell, Paltrow once even considered starting a family with the Legally Blonde actor.
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Their love story began in 2001 as many Hollywood love stories do: on a movie set. “‘I have two goals for [The Royal Tenenbaums],'” Wilson told a crew member, per the book. “‘Not to look like an a–hole and figure out how to get a date with Gwyneth Paltrow.'” Eventually, Wilson got his way, and he and Paltrow became an item. “They thought they were keeping it a secret, but everyone on the set knew,” writes Odell (who, full disclosure, is a former editor and friend).
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It was after the death of Paltrow’s beloved father, Bruce, in October 2002, that the Emma star started yearning to have kids — and toyed with the idea of doing so with Wilson. “She had thought about having a baby with Luke Wilson,” Odell writes. But there were two big red flags: “[A]ccording to one of Gwyneth’s friends, he smoked a lot of pot and didn’t seem ready to be a parent.”
It’s unclear how or why Paltrow and Wilson broke up, but around the same time of her family-planning epiphany, Paltrow attended a Coldplay concert in London, where she met the future father of her children, Chris Martin. The pair were married a year later, in December 2003, and they welcomed their first child, Apple, in May 2004. Just like Richie and Margot Tenenbaum, Luke Wilson and Gwyneth Paltrow were never meant to be.
Gwyneth: The Biography is out now.
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New Gwyneth Paltrow Biography Reveals Why She Chose Not to Have Children With Ex Luke Wilson first appeared on Parade on Jul 29, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 29, 2025, where it first appeared.
