Gwyneth Paltrow recalls having an 'initial difficult relationship' with Brad Falchuk's kids

Gwyneth Paltrow is opening up about her experience as a stepmom to husband Brad Falchuk's two kids.

While taking the mic at the Visionary Women’s International Women’s Day Summit on March 6, Paltrow asked if anyone in the audience was a stepmother, according to People.

When the crowd applauded, she said, “Yeah, it’s a b---h, right, guys? No, I actually, I really like to talk about this because it’s one of my biggest learnings as a human being. And my area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my stepkids, and now they’re like my kids.”

Paltrow noted that the path to get there was "really rough."

“It’s almost like you have to embody the spirit of the sun and just give and not expect anything back," she said of what it's like to be a stepparent.

“I just learned to try to just keep shining like the sun and never keeping score," she added.

Paltrow shares her two kids, Apple, 19, and Moses, 17, with her ex-husband, Chris Martin. Falchuk is a father of two kids, Isabella, 18, and Brody, 17, whom he shares with his ex-wife, Suzanne Bukinik.

While speaking with Falchuk on a September 2022 episode of her “Goop" podcast, Paltrow said she fumbled as a stepparent at first.

“There’s just no playbook for how to do it and nobody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to be a stepmother,’” she said. “There’s this archetypal evil stepmother and this inference that ... it’s going to be this fraught thing.”

However, Paltrow said she started to see things differently once she told herself: “F--- it, these are my kids. I’m not going to be scared to discipline them or draw the boundary.”“That’s really what shifted everything,” she told Falchuk.

Martin's girlfriend, Dakota Johnson, has also spoken out about her experience being a stepmom.

During a March 5 interview with Bustle, she revealed that she considers herself a stepmom even though she and Martin are not married.

“I love those kids like my life depends on it. With all my heart,” she said.

Johnson noted that she doesn't mind large, blended families because she has six siblings herself.

“I think because I grew up in it, it’s come more naturally, but I wouldn’t have it any other way really. I really wouldn’t. I love it,” she said.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com