"Back in the day, I had a ‘frenemy’ who, as it turned out, was pretty hell-bent on taking me down. This person really did what they could to hurt me. I was deeply upset, I was angry, I was all of those things you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. And my reaction was deep relief and … happiness. There went the high road. So, why does it feel so good to hear something bad about someone you don’t like?"

Paltrow doesn’t name the "frenemy" who hurt her, but the gossip world has a hunch about the person’s identity.

Most fingers point at Winona Ryder, who was once Paltrow’s best friend. The two purportedly ended their friendship in the 1990s around the time Paltrow broke up with Ben Affleck and Ryder was then dating Affleck’s best friend, Matt Damon. The friendship took a turn for the worse when Paltrow scored the lead role in "Shakespeare in Love" — a part Ryder had her heart set on — and won an Academy Award. Ryder was then arrested in 2001 after shoplifting at a Saks Fifth Avenue department store.

People.com lists other suspected "frenemies" — including Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and, shockingly, Mario Batali.

Paltrow also writes on her website that she wonders why society finds bad news so entertaining:

I once asked the editor of a tabloid newspaper why all of the stories about a famous British couple had a negative bent. He said that when the headline was positive, the paper didn’t sell. Why is that? What’s wrong with us? I asked the sages to shed a little light. Here’s to washing our mouths out with soap.