Gwyneth Paltrow Can Thank Glee For Her Marriage To Husband Brad Falchuk

Gwyneth Paltrow's name in the news isn't new. Thanks to her wacky lifestyle and wellness brand, Goop, Paltrow is constantly talked about. But more recently, Paltrow has been the talk of the internet due to her civil court case trial involving a ski accident that happened in 2016. As NBC News reported, Terry Sanderson accused Paltrow of causing a skiing accident at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah that left him with brain injuries and broken ribs. Interestingly, the trip that led to this accident was very family-oriented for Paltrow and involved her now-husband, Brad Falchuk.

As People reported, Paltrow's father Bruce Paltrow taught the "Iron Man" actor how to ski, and after he died in 2002, Paltrow "didn't ski for a long time" due to how closely linked it was for her with her late father. But she did say that by 2016, she "heard his voice in my head" urging her to teach her own kids to ski. This is what led to said trip, with Paltrow not only bringing her two kids, but Falchuk's, as well. "This was a significant trip for us. It was the first time Brad and I were introducing our kids and doing something together to see if we could blend families," she said. Her stepkids and now-husband all play a large part in her life... and to think none of that would have come to be if not for a little show called "Glee."

Gwyneth Paltrow made her iconic debut on "Glee" as substitute teacher Holly Holliday in 2010 during the aptly named episode "The Substitute." This was in the show's second season, during its heyday. Holly was a flighty, cool substitute that kind of flitted around the school, filling in for various subjects and lending her relaxed teaching style to each. She has a steamy tryst with Will Schuester after substituting for his Spanish classes with her well-known greeting, "¡Hola, clase!" Paltrow ended up appearing in a total of five "Glee" episodes. Brad Falchuk was one of the executive producers and creators of the series, and as he told Harper's Bazaar in 2020, the two of them had "similar enough backgrounds," so they "developed this really lovely friendship."

When she was first a guest star, Paltrow was still married to Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, according to People. Falchuk was also married at the time, to Suzanne Bukinik, an executive producer on "According to Jim." Paltrow famously announced her and Martin's divorce in 2014, saying they had a "conscious uncoupling," and Bukinik divorced Falchuk in 2013. After the two were both single at the same time, Paltrow and Falchuk started publicly dating in 2015 and got married in 2018. As Page Six reported, they both had two kids from their previous marriages, which can come with its own set of challenges.

Blending families with teens is tricky, and being a stepmother to them isn't easy — Gwyneth Paltrow isn't immune to this. "There's just no playbook for how to do it," she said on "The goop Podcast" in September 2022. "I think there's this like archetypal evil stepmother and this inference that it's going to be this fraught thing, so I came into it on tenterhooks like, 'Oh my gosh, you can only kind of do the wrong thing.'"

She did say that her "one regret" was her "trepidation" about her new stepkids, Isabella and Brody, holding them at arm's length instead of bringing them fully in. "However many years ago I was just like, 'F*** it, these are my kids," Paltrow said about how she changed her tune. "I love them. I'm not gonna like be scared to discipline them. If someone asked me for advice on it, I would just say from day one, just really treat them as your kid."

Brad Falchuk also had to be a stepparent to Paltrow's children, Apple and Moses. His advice to others is to "define yourself as a stepparent the way you define yourself as a parent." He told the podcast, "For me, that just means providing stability and guidance and a sense of boundaries for the household and for the family ... Also just trying to be a guide to them from my experience and my wisdom."