Vinay Menon: The Gwyneth Paltrow skiing lawsuit is a lost cause no matter who wins

If you can tell me what’s happening in this Gwyneth Paltrow trial, I will send you a Toronto Star tote bag filled with bone broth and yoni stones.

The actor and lifestyle mogul is currently holed up in a Utah courtroom. Garbed each day in black, grey or beige neutrals inspired by a Benjamin Moore trend report, Ms. Paltrow stands accused of reckless skiing resulting in bodily injury. This case could cost her $300,000, or roughly what she pays weekly for organic lentils.

Terry Sanderson, 76, alleges Paltrow ran over him like a Zamboni in 2016 while the two were on the slopes of Flagstaff Mountain. He testified hearing a “blood-curdling scream” before this “full body hit” left him with a brain injury, broken ribs, emotional distress, personality changes and an inability to “no longer enjoy wine tastings.”

That’s his story. One day, the retired optometrist could appreciate the nose of a Gaja Barbaresco. The next, the blond from “The Talented Mr. Ripley” was screaming like a banshee, barrelling into him at the Deer Valley Resort. Now he’s a damaged man.

And this is where everything goes sideways off the bunny hill.

Paltrow, who is countersuing for a symbolic $1 and legal costs, says it was Sanderson who plowed into her. She first thought it was sexual assault. As she testified: “I was skiing and two skis came between my skis, forcing my legs apart and then there was a body pressing against me. And there was a very strange grunting noise.”

This is why I have no interest in skiing. Or golfing. Or trying to understand the rich.

I hope the jury has Advil stashed under every seat. Trying to sort this out is a migraine in the making. Neither side can settle on the basic facts. It’s as if there was a car crash and both drivers accused the other of doing the T-boning. It doesn’t help that this trial, now in its second week, is already a meme-a-thon of weird.

Listening to Paltrow get grilled by Kristin VanOrman, Sanderson’s lawyer, is like hearing the Hamburglar interrogate Butch Cassidy. It’s not clear if VanOrman is playing possum to disarm a witness. Or if she’s star-struck and yearns to be BFFs with Gwyneth for future Goop freebies and concert tickets to Taylor Swift.

Her client in this civil trial is also coming across as a certified weirdo. Shortly after the collision, as the court heard, Sanderson emailed his daughters: “I’m famous.” This is an odd reaction upon suffering head trauma and cracked ribs. If Halle Berry fell out of a tree and landed on me, I wouldn’t be texting my daughters about a chance celebrity encounter — I’d be calling 911 for urgent medical care.

Meanwhile, in the absence of any agreed-upon facts, Paltrow is also making it hard to take her side. She’s shielding her face with binders and whining about cameras in the courtroom. She’s exhibiting a theatrical range of expressions and body language — withering glare, coquettish giggle, Mean Girls eye-rolling, arms-crossed pouty pout, serial killer vibes courtesy of Jeffrey Dahmer aviators — that was tragically MIA when she played Pepper Potts in the “Iron Man” franchise.

You’d think Paltrow would have the good sense to at least fake being relatable to this jury of her non-peers. You know? Instead of the $1,200 Celine boots, maybe slip on a pair of Crocs? Maybe try to look like you’re not about to pass out from boredom?

When asked in the witness stand about what she endured that day, Paltrow quipped, “Well, we lost a half day of skiing.” The horror!

Sanderson initially sued Paltrow for just over $3 million. When that case was dismissed, he erased a zero and is now trying for $300,000. If this fails, he might simply beg her to pay for his annual Netflix subscription.

I have no idea what happened in Utah. That’s for the court to sort. But when I hear him testify, I instinctively reach into my breast pocket to make sure my wallet is still there. Then Paltrow testifies and I can’t tell if she’s the victim of a celebrity shakedown or is repurposing lame talking points used whenever her lifestyle brand is sued for deceptive health claims or for selling vagina candles that go kaboom.

Whoever wins this case, we all lose. That is the only logical outcome.

The rich aren’t like us — and Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t even like the rich.

She is in a rarefied category of out-of-touch. Her toenails get more maintenance than my Honda. Go to her Goop website and behold the products listed under “Wellness.” For two grand, you can buy a “Rainbow Mat” filled with seven natural gemstones — amethyst, sodalite, blue lace agate, green aventurine, yellow aventurine, carnelian and red jasper — that, in combination with “far-infrared heat” and “pulsed electromagnetic fields,” will help you relax. Two grand?

Ease muscular tension and recalibrate your chakras by getting fleeced?

That’s why it’s impossible to get worked up about who might triumph in this case. If the accuser is a money-grubbing scammer — and I’m not saying he is — he is targeting a celebrity who has also been accused of scamming consumers with ridiculous products.

A “Rainbow Mat” won’t help you meditate — it will make you hate yourself.

This is no trial of the century. It’s a case no reasonable person can care about.

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