Gwyneth Paltrow claims she 'broke the internet' before Kim Kardashian by consciously uncoupling from Chris Martin

Both women managed to get widespread attention for their actions, albeit for very different reasons

Gywneth Paltrow made the comments on her lifestyle website GOOP (Getty Images)

Gwyneth Paltrow has made the surprising claim that she “broke the internet” - nine months before Kim Kardashian’s naked cover shoot for Paper magazine.

Paltrow was speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York when she explained that her divorce from Chris Martin - and the subsequent birth of the phrase “conscious uncoupling” - actually broke the internet.

“When I was announcing my husband and I were separating and we were trying to follow this specific way of doing it, and the philosophy is ‘conscious uncoupling’ and we like, broke the f****** internet,” she recalls.

She says that as well as having to deal with the breakdown of her marriage she had to contend with negative opinions from the media, who found the term “conscious uncoupling” pretentious.

“It’s such a hard time personally and then you have this added layer of criticism.”

Kardashan-West covered Paper magazine in November 2014, with the tagline “Break The Internet”.

The phrase soon entered popular culture as fans and critics alike weighed on on the nude photo shoot for the cult magazine.