Livia Giuggioli, the ex-wife of actor Colin Firth, has cancelled a planned visit by Gwyneth Paltrow to her Italian farm after the Oscar-winning actress starred in an advert for a luxury Israeli housing development. In an Instagram video posted on Friday, Giuggioli, 56, called Paltrow’s participation “disgusting” and “completely unacceptable”.
“I just cancelled Gwyneth Paltrow,” said Giuggioli, an eco-fashion campaigner. “She was supposed to come to the farm in a couple of weeks time on a tour, a soil-to-fork farm experience, and we just cancelled her because what she did is completely unacceptable.”
“Colin Firth's ex-wife, Livia Giuggioli, cancels Gwyneth Paltrow's farm visit over a 'disgusting' Israeli property ad.”
Giuggioli runs Quintosapore, a sustainable farm on the Tuscan-Umbrian border that she co-founded with her twin brothers, Alessandro and Nicola. The farm remains closely associated with Firth, who starred alongside Paltrow in the Oscar-winning film *Shakespeare in Love*. Giuggioli and Firth were married for 22 years before divorcing in 2019.
The advert, released earlier this week, shows Paltrow waking up in a high-rise apartment block and getting ready for the day while listing the benefits of living near a park. “There’s a reason the world’s most iconic buildings are by a park,” she says, as she instructs a driver to take her to a luxury residential development in the Israeli city of Herzliya.
Giuggioli, who has called for a boycott of Israel because of its military action in the Middle East, did not hold back in her criticism. “Making an ad for a luxury condo is as disgusting as it can be for someone [with] privilege,” she said. “How detached are you from reality? You’re either so detached that you need to be cancelled, because you live in another world, or you’re actually a really, really nasty person. Or you are stupid. Which are you, Gwyneth Paltrow?”
Paltrow has faced a backlash on social media. One X user wrote: “Do not watch anything she is in any more, show them advertising for an evil death cult in Zionism is not good for sales.” Another said: “I used to love Gwyneth Paltrow because of her acting skills. Today I feel like throwing up. For a few bucks, which she already had in abundance, she sold her soul to the devil by promoting a residential development in Israel being developed on a stolen Palestinian land.”
But the actress also received praise. One comment read: “Putting your name anywhere near Israel is supposed to be a career risk now. That is the entire goal of the pressure, to make basic association feel radioactive. The biggest stars usually turn out to be the ones who stopped performing fear.”
Paltrow, who has one Jewish parent and is married to a Jewish man, has not publicly responded to Giuggioli’s comments.