Gwyneth Paltrow, Rachael Ray Team Up to Battle Ghostwriter Allegations

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Today in Ghostwriter-Gate: Gwyneth Paltrow and Rachael Ray remain on the defense against a New York Times story reporting that the famous domestic doyennes hired ghostwriters to pen their cookbooks.

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Paltrow will appear on Friday's edition of Rachael Ray to set the record straight alongside the TV chef and talk-show host. For the past week since publication, a Times article entitled "I Was A Cookbook Ghostwriter" has spawned headlines for unmasking the writers who help time-strapped celebrity chefs -- and sometimes actresses-turned-chefs -- compile their cookbooks.

Paltrow's cameo was Skyped-in during a Wednesday taping.

"You know, normally I don't respond to gossip or anything, but you know this is my professional life and I'm writing more cookbooks," Paltrow said, according to USA Today's website. "And I feel like it's important for the people who have responded so positively and interacted with me about my book, that they know that this is my book and I wrote my book and it's all mine."

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Ray sided with the star, responding: "I so strongly agree, this is how I spend the little time at home I have with my family, I spend in front of these little notebooks, in front of the computer. It sort of takes away from all of that to not be able to call that writing, of course that's writing. It doesn't mean you don't value the people who write the glossary or that help organize the pantry or that work on a project, but a writer is still a writer."

The main image for the piece, written by Julia Moskin, shows Paltrow gracing the cover her debut recipe collection, My Father's Daughter, released in April 2011. Earlier this week, the Times declared in a statement: "The article does not merit correction."

"Julia Turshen, who is writing a second cookbook with Gwyneth Paltrow after their collaboration on My Father's Daughter, began as the ghostwriter for the ghostwriter on a book by Mario Batali, tagging along with a notebook as the chef filmed a culinary romp through Spain," wrote Moskin, who also mentioned Ray, Martha Stewart and Paula Deen among the ghost-employing food icons.

To which Paltrow shot back on her Facebook page over the weekend: "Love @nytimes dining section but this weeks facts need checking. No ghost writer on my cookbook, I wrote every word myself." 

Ray, the face of an eponymous magazine and recipe tomes including Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book, re-tweeted Paltrow's remarks in solidarity.