Last weekend, Apple Martin – the daughter of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and singer Chris Martin – made headlines in a major way. The 20-year-old was one of the participants at a debutante ball held in Paris and went viral for a moment involving another young woman. A TikTok video captured Apple seemingly stealing a photo opportunity from a fellow debutante amid the festivities. She’s since received backlash across social media for her actions. All the while, a fellow celebrity kid is talking about their own run-in with Ms. Martin at the ball.
The event in question was the Le Bal des Débutantes ball, which saw around 20 young women have their formal debuts into society. It was probably a given that the annual event would feature a number of participants from the highest parts of society, though so may not have expected at least one other child of Hollywood celebrities taking part. Sophie Kodjoe – the daughter of actors Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker – took part as well. Based on sentiments Sophie recently shared, she was delighted to see Apple Martin:
I didn’t realize it but Apple was running in the same circles that I was. She went to Crossroads and Harvard-Westlake [high school]. Basically, all of my friends also went to Crossroads and Harvard-Westlake, so we were just talking about people that we knew and our time in high school.
19-year-old Sophie Kodjoe also admitted to People that she was initially “nervous” about being around people that she wasn’t familiar with. On that note, one gets the impression that it was somewhat comforting to encounter someone who’s somewhat close to being in her orbit. Kodjoe didn’t say anything about the aforementioned viral TikTok video but did drop additional thoughts about discovering that she and some of the other contestants had more shared connections than she realized:
It was very cool to see how we all cross paths. I think it was really cool because, I guess Apple’s from LA, and Lucia lives sometimes in LA, sometimes in France. I just thought that was so crazy that we all knew someone or on in each other in some way.
The comments from young Ms. Kodjoe are quite different from what’s been said by those who saw the video of Apple Martin. Clad in a custom Valentino dress, Gwyneth Paltrow’s look-alike jumped in as a photographer was snapping photos of another young lady. The other debutante, who was sporting a black dress, ultimately smiled and seemed to brush off what happened. Nevertheless, the college junior was still chastised for what went down. Following the initial brouhaha, an insider shared claims about what really happened with Martin’s video, as they alleged that Martin didn’t act with malice but merely out of her playful nature.
For the most part, Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter – one of two that she shares with her ex-husband – stays out of the spotlight. There have been rare occasions, however, in which she’s drawn attention. For instance, she caught attention when she weighed in on her mom’s 52nd birthday earlier this year and when she poked fun at Paltrow’s vagina eggs in a video posted in 2021. So, all in all, the newly minted debutante’s digital footprint isn’t that large – to the point where one could question whether she lets Paltrow post photos of her on occasion.
Aside from Apple Martin’s viral video and the eventual backlash that followed it, she seemed to enjoy herself at the ball, and that also seemed to ring true for Sophie Kodjoe. Nicole Ari Parker posted some sweet photos from the event on Instagram, and proud father Boris Kodjoe took to IG to share pics and a video of his dance with his daughter. Despite the viral hoopla surrounding Martin, it sounds like she, Sophia and co. had a night they’ll surely never forget.