Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, has written an article in his magazine, running to more than 1,500 words, to tell readers why he has not published an article about Gwyneth Paltrow.

His editor's letter, which gets cover billing as "Goop, gossip & Gwyneth", is part explanation and part excuse for his spiking of a story he commissioned about the London-based film actor.

After his opening line, "Not to bore you with the details", he goes on to do just that. Well, up to a point. It also amounts to a revealing insight into the way in which a magazine that depends on celebrity content can be held hostage by celebrities.

In effect, after considerable pressure and months of dithering, Carter sounded the retreat.

The dispute began almost a year ago. Paltrow had been named by one US magazine, Star, as the "most hated celebrity" and named in another US magazine, People, as the "world's most beautiful woman."

These are not, as you will immediately gather, opposites. But the supposed contradiction was enough to stimulate a discussion at VF's editorial meeting, exposing a split between those who liked Paltrow and those who did not, and those who liked her website, Goop.com, and those who did not.

The result? Carter commissioned contributing editor Vanessa Grigoriadis to write "a reported essay on the Gwyneth Paltrow love/hate phenomenon."

Once Paltrow found out she emailed her show business friends saying: "Vanity Fair is threatening to put me on the cover of their magazine without my participation. I recommend you all never do this magazine again."

That message was duly reported in the New York Post and then the New York Times. According to Carter, he was soon inundated with emails from anti-Gwynethites threatening to cancel their subscriptions if the story didn't run and pro-Gwynethites who threatened to cancel their subscriptions if the story did run.

VF-versus-Paltrow had become a story before Grigoriadis filed her copy, which Carter describes as "delightfully written" but "not the one the anti-Gwynethites expected." Carter thought it "such a far cry from the almost mythical story that people were by now expecting – the 'epic takedown' filled with 'bombshell' revelations – that it was bound to be a disappointment."

So he sat on the article some more until, in October, Paltrow called him. "We talked for about 20 minutes about the story and her reaction, or over-reaction, to it," writes Carter.

He therefore continued to sit on the article. Inevitably, some two months later, news broke of a truce between him and Paltrow. And, of course, he was criticised, to use his phrase, "for caving." Here is his conclusion:

"The Gwyneth Paltrow saga had clearly just gotten away from us. My instinct was to continue to let it sit until people had forgotten about it, or at least until expectations had diminished.

The fact is the Gwyneth Paltrow story, the one we ordered up, as delightfully written as it was, is not the one the anti-Gwynethites expect. That it has generated more mail and attention than many of the biggest stories we've ever published only makes the situation more complicated.

The thing of it is, we really don't publish 'epic,' out-of-the-blue 'takedowns' of individual public figures, unless they are in heated conflict with another public figure or unless their positions and their actions have a grievous effect on the lives of others. We'll save our gunpowder for bigger stories.

And so, sorry as we are to disappoint all those many people out there, for the time being we'll leave it to another publication to roll out the 'epic bombshells' surrounding Gwyneth Paltrow. It's a story I might read. I just don't want to publish it."

But that doesn't make sense because he concedes that the "delightfully written" piece by Grigoriadis was "not the one the anti-Gwynethites expected." In other words, it wasn't a "takedown". So why not publish?

As for the "bigger stories", here are three gunpowder exclusives in the March issue of Vanity Fair: a friend of Ellen DeGeneres explains why she's so inspiring; Chuck Close, the "art-world legend", photographs Scarlett Johansson‎, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts "in a gallery of revelation"; and "the truth about the close relationship" between Rupert Murdoch's ex-wife Wendi Deng and Tony Blair. The latter surely qualifies for "takedown" status, does it not?

Source: Vanity Fair