Actress Gwyneth Paltrow Disses America: 'British Much More Intelligent and Civilized'

December 4th, 2006 10:31 AM

Joining an undistinguished list of Hollywoodans biting the hand that feeds them, actress Gwyneth Paltrow declared on Saturday that she prefers the British to her own countrymen, slamming the civility and intellectual capacity of all us uncultured Americanos. As reported by Agence France Presse (hat tip to Drudge, emphasis mine throughout):

Oscar-winning US actress Gwyneth Paltrow feels dinner talk is far more interesting in her adopted homeland Britain than back in her native country.

"I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America. People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner," she told "NS," the weekend magazine supplement of daily Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias on Saturday.

Isn’t that special? Not as capitalistic! Dontcha love all the Hollywoodans that complain about American capitalism as they charge movie producers tens of millions of dollars for four months work? Regardless of the oozing hypocricy, her worst insults were yet to come:

"I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans," the 34-year-old added.

But here’s the best part: she especially likes living in London so that she can be close to the exceptionally civilized Madonna…I kid you not:

She said having US pop star Madonna, 48, who married British film director Guy Ritchie six years ago, nearby was another advantage to living in London.

"She's like an older sister. Everything I have gone through, she went through ten times worse and ten times longer. She gives me good advice about how to say no and take care of myself," said Paltrow.

Taking advice from Madonna about saying “no” is akin to letting an arsonist check the batteries in your home’s smoke detectors.

Well, I guess that's another actress whose movies I can ignore from this point forward. As this list continues to grow in length, I wonder if some day I will be resigned to watching films containing the only people worthy of respect -- my children. Talk amongst yourselves.

*****Update: For those interested, the intellectually superior Paltrow dropped out of UC Santa Barbara where she was studying the incredibly challenging subject of Art History. In case you're not familiar with UCSB, though certainly a fine institution, this is where students in California go if they're not intelligent enough to get into either UC Berkeley (my alma mater!), USC, Stanford, UCLA, or UC San Diego. As a sidebar, this is also considered one of California's top "party schools," and is rumored to have one of the highest per capita STD rates of any college on the West Coast.  

*****Update II: Gwyneth told People magazine Monday that she never did the interview reported by AFP, was misquoted, and loves America -- http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1565719,00.html.