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Gwyneth Paltrow celebrates 50th birthday by posing nude covered in gold paint

Gwyneth Paltrow - Andrew Yee/Andrew Yee
Gwyneth Paltrow - Andrew Yee/Andrew Yee

Most people would dress up for a 50th birthday celebration. Gwyneth Paltrow is not like most people.

The Hollywood actress turned lifestyle guru marked the milestone by stripping naked for a photoshoot inspired by Goldfinger.

In an accompanying essay, Paltrow explained that she had learned to accept “the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles” that come with being 50.

If she suffers from any of those things, they were certainly not evident from the pictures, in which she displays a body of which a 21-year-old would be proud.

Perhaps that is down to the products used, which are handily available from Paltrow’s Goop website. You too could achieve this look with the aid of her Nourishing Repair Body Butter (£60), All-In-One Nourishing Face Cream (£91) and Himalayan Salt Scalp Scrub Shampoo (£51), plus a Californian millionaire lifestyle and some very good genes.

A make-up artist and hairdresser covered Paltrow in shimmering gold powder, applied with a brush, to turn her into what the make-up artist described as a “golden goddess”.

“I feel so good turning 50, and this is about expressing that sense of energy and optimism that I’m experiencing. It’s more about the female gaze and just a sense of fun,” she said.

Gwyneth Paltrow - Andrew Yee/Andrew Yee
Gwyneth Paltrow - Andrew Yee/Andrew Yee

Paltrow has form in this area. For her 49th birthday, she shared a naked picture of herself in an outdoor bathtub. When she turned 48, she stripped off in the garden.

“Ageing is actually a beautiful thing. We just need to open our perceptions. As you become more yourself, in integrity, your life really opens up,” Paltrow explained.

In her essay, she wrote of her 50-year-old body: “Silver hair and fine lines. The sun has left her celestial fingerprints all over me, as if she soaked a brush in dark-taupe watercolour, flecking it over my skin.

“And while I do what I can to strive for good health and longevity, to stave off weakening muscles and receding bone, I have a mantra I insert into those reckless thoughts that try to derail me: I accept.

“I accept the marks and the loosening skin, the wrinkles. I accept my body and let go of the need to be perfect, look perfect, defy gravity, defy logic, defy humanity. I accept my humanity.”

Paltrow has two children with her ex-husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin. She recently described the experience of seeing their 18-year-old daughter, Apple, go to university as feeling “almost as profound as giving birth”. Paltrow is now married to her second husband, TV executive Brad Falchuk.

Paltrow - Andrew Yee
Paltrow - Andrew Yee

The actress and entrepreneur said she hoped to live for another 50 years and wrote a list of how she would like to spend them.

“I would like to slow down. I would like to retreat a little bit. I would like to make my circle smaller. I would like to cook dinner more. I would like to see misunderstandings become understandings,” she wrote.

“I would like to continue to open the deepest part of myself to my husband, even though it scares me. I would like to sing more, even if it’s just in the shower. I would like to tell anyone that had a negative experience with me that I am sorry.”

Paltrow said she would also like to acknowledge her imperfections. “I have no patience, I swear at other drivers, I don’t close my closet doors, I lie when I don’t want to hurt feelings.”

And she reflected, deeply, on the changes that she has seen in her 50 years. “We have gone from bell bottoms to skinny jeans to bell bottoms and we will go back again,” she said.