It was the court case that consumed our lives for the past eight days, Gwyneth Paltrow won in court this morning after a jury deemed her not liable for the 2016 ski crash with retired optometrist Terry Sanderson.
Sanderson, 76, who was suing for $300,000 (£245,000) in damages alleging he suffered life-changing injuries, called the verdict ‘disappointing’. Gwyneth’s winning countersuit, for $1 and legal damages, is the culmination of eight days’ worth of testimony from doctors and ski instructors, in yet another celebrity court room drama filled with viral-worthy moments.
In the court of public opinion, Gwyneth has certainly come out on top: her outfits, wry cross-examination responses and insistence on gifting court security staff with lunch will go down in meme history. She may’ve lost a half-day of skiing, but she won the internet. Certainly, her final words in court made for a hilarious climax to the already farcical legal battle.
Exiting the court room alone, she brushed past Sanderson and bent over to whisper a simple ‘I wish you well’. Sanderson’s reply? ‘Thank you, dear.’
And while both parties are surely well-intentioned, the internet has decided otherwise – dubbing Gwyneth’s wish ‘sinister’, a hex placed on the man that lost her not just time on the slopes, but eight days’ worth of Tracey Anderson workout sessions.
‘Catherine de Medici is rising from her grave to learn tips from Gwyneth Paltrow on how to destroy your enemies with a word,’ joked journalist Heidi Moore on Twitter. ‘Notice how is frozen, in place, after her whisper. The quiet menace.’
Frankly, it was a worthy ending to a trial brimming with memeable moments from lawyers’ fan-girling over Gwyneth’s height to interrogating her closeness to Taylor Swift. Whether Gwyneth meant the wish as genuine or not, the internet will find a way to make it comedic – a comment not just on how ridiculous the court case is, but also the public obsession with it that we’re all guilty of.