Kim Kardashian Didn’t Break The Internet, Says Gwyneth Paltrow

Move over, Kim Kardashian. It wasn’t you that broke the internet, Gwyneth Paltrow did! The actress claims that she was the one who broke the internet before the reality star.

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks that her clever term “conscious uncoupling” broke the internet long before the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star did in her Paper Magazine photo shoot. At the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City on November 10, the 43-year-old GOOP founder says that her unique way of announcing their divorce broke the internet.

“When I was announcing my husband and I were separating and we were trying to follow this specific way of doing it, and the philosophy is conscious uncoupling and we like broke the f*****g internet. It’s such a hard time personally and then you have this added layer of all this criticism.”

Kim Kardashian broke the internet when she posed fully nude inside the pages of Paper Magazine in November 2014, after she gave birth to her first child North West. It was also nine months after Gwyneth’s divorce announcement.

“Then when you look back you go, ‘Well, this is actually kind of a good thing to talk back, introducing in some way.’ Like, what if you could break up in a way where you remain a family even though you’re not a couple? And what would be that effect on your children and your community? Even though we did it in an inelegant way – because it was such an emotional time and we didn’t give it as much context and didn’t explain [that it] wasn’t something that I was inventing – it was already an established theory.”

Gwyneth Paltrow and the Coldplay frontman announced on March 2014 that they were “consciously uncoupling” after 10 years of marriage. It was the very first time that the term was ever used in a celebrity split announcement. But it quickly became the norm in future announcement of other celebrity couples who split that year. The term was originally developed by bestselling author and psychologist Katherine Woodward Thomas, who has a five-work program that allows couples to break up amicably.

Paltrow didn’t just talk about the time she broke the internet. She also revealed that she had to deal with a lot of the jokes and scrutiny from the media, especially those who found the term “unconscious coupling” a bit pretentious.

But it looks like the term “break the internet” wasn’t introduced to the world until November 2014, when Kim Kardashian surprised fans with her Paper Magazine photo shoot. The reality star graced the cover with the tagline, “Break The Internet.” Once Kardashian revealed her photo shoot, it didn’t take long for the term to trend on Twitter.

While Gwyneth Paltrow’s divorce to Chris Martin did shock the world, and the term “conscious uncoupling” created confusion, it didn’t nearly break the internet the way that Kim Kardashian’s photo shoot did.

In her August interview with Fast Company, the Iron Man 3 star said that she didn’t even want to take credit for the term “conscious uncoupling.” Paltrow says that the term was thought of by her editorial director, Elise Loehnen, who borrowed the term from the previously mentioned psychologist.

Gwyneth does stand by the term though. Despite what critics have said, she doesn’t think that it’s pretentious or out of touch with her readers. She also admitted that she wasn’t sure what she was doing when she started the site as a weekly newsletter in 2008. Since then, GOOP has become one of the first lifestyle brands developed by an actress.

Now, it looks like Kim Kardashian and her sisters have learned the importance of handing a lifestyle brand. All four sisters have since launched their eponymous websites and apps, which have topped the iTunes Charts.

Who do you think broke the internet first: Gwyneth Paltrow or Kim Kardashian? Share your thoughts below in the comments section.

[Photos by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for InStyle and Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Fast Company]