Two men badly burned following fire at Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop store

One of the men was airlifted to hospital with severe burns

Joanna Whitehead
Tuesday 12 July 2022 13:08 BST
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(Getty Images)

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Two men were badly burned at Gwyneth’s Paltrow’s Goop store in the exclusive Hamptons village of Sag Harbor, it has been reported.

The incident occurred at an event on 25 June after caterers were said to have attempted to make s’mores — a toasted marshmallow campfire treat — using rubbing alcohol.

Stone candle holders filled with the ethanol-based liquid apparently exploded, resulting in one of the affected men being airlifted to hospital after incurring severe injuries to his head and back, while another was rushed to A&E with facial burns.

The fire ignited when one of the workers added more rubbing alcohol to the candle holders before the flame was fully out, according to The Daily Mail.

A store fire extinguisher was used to put out the fire that backfired on one of the men.

Both men survived the incident, but their condition remains unknown.

“Nothing’s ever new, but this one takes the cake. I've never seen anything like this in 26 years”, officer Austin J McGuire was reported to have said upon attending the scene.

A representative from the store claimed that candles were not involved in the fire and that the information about rubbing alcohol and candles was “factually incorrect”.

A Goop representative said: “There was an accidental fire in connection with a s’mores station at the Goop store recently.

“We are wishing a speedy recovery to the two injured parties and are grateful there were no additional injuries. No candles were in use at the time of the accidental fire.”

The Independent has contacted Goop for further comment.

(Goop)

The news comes just over a year after Goop was sued after one of their “This smells like my vagina” scented candles exploded in a man’s room hours after he lit it.

Coby Watson from Texas alleged that the candle suddenly became “engulfed in high flames” before “exploding”, leaving his room “filled with smoke”.

A woman from north London also reported that “all hell was unleashed” on the second night after she lit the candle, in a 2021 piece for The Guardian.

“A few minutes after I lit the candle, it exploded. Flames roared half a metre out of the jar and bits of molten wax flew out as it fizzed and spat. We couldn’t get near it to blow it out as the flames were so ferocious, and we didn’t want to throw water on it for fear of splashing molten wax everywhere. Luckily, I had placed it on concrete, at the base of what was once a fireplace,” Ms Thompson wrote.

She added: “After what seemed like an age, but was probably no more than five minutes, the flames subsided and I could blow the candle out. The charred jar and melted label were testament to how hot it had become.”

The wellness and lifestyle brand was launched by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008 and has since been subject to criticism by doctors for “ignoring science”.

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