Gwyneth Paltrow on being panned by Martha Stewart: 'No one said anything bad about me before so I'm shocked and devastated'

The actress says that she’s just delighted that Stewart considers her a competitor

Gwyneth Paltrow is unsurprised by Martha Stewart’s recent criticism of her; she’s well used to it.

“No one has ever said anything bad about me before, so I’m shocked and devastated,” she joked. “I’ll try to recover.”

In September, the US lifestyle mogul said that Paltrow should just “be quiet”.

The pair both run lifestyle companies and the actress this week announced that she had hired Lisa Gersh, the former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

“She just needs to be quiet,” said Stewart of the consciously uncoupled actress. “She’s a movie star. If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart.”

But Paltrow doesn’t seem to mind. Endlessly optimistic (this is the woman who claims that negative sounds can hurt water’s feelings and that a diet of kale and seeds can be joyful), she thinks that Stewart’s choice words are, in fact, quite illuminating.

“If I’m really honest, I’m so psyched that she sees us as competition. I really am,” she said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit yesterday.

“When anyone criticises anyone, it’s revealing more about where they are in time and space, as opposed to where you are in time and space. It’s usually a reflection of something else.”