Gwyneth Paltrow Says Chris Martin’s Music Helped Her Cope with Her Dad’s Death

After 2014’s conscious uncoupling, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin remain some of Hollywood’s friendliest exes — so it’s only natural that she included a Coldplay hit on her list for “My Favorite Song” with John Benjamin Hickey.

The actress found solace in the band’s single “Everything’s Not Lost” after her father, producer and director Bruce Paltrow, died in 2002.

“He wrote this song before I met him, and I think another reason it’s sad for me is my father had just died when this album came out, and we used to listen to it kind of on repeat,” says Paltrow, 43. “This album was kind of getting my brother and I through that death.”

Three weeks later, she met Martin, “when I was fanning out on ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head,'” she jokes, and the stars married in 2003.

“I love that,” says Hickey, 52. “That this was in your life before the actual person was. That’s beautiful.”

Paltrow also praises the songwriting skills of the father of her two children, recalling how he penned ‘Paradise’ off Coldplay’s 2011 album ‘Mylo Xyloto,’ in mere minutes.

“This one time, I was making dinner, we sat down for dinner in London, and the kids were in bed, and he was telling me that someone had asked him to write a song for somebody else. And then all of a sudden he got a really weird look in his eye, and he was like, ‘I’ll be right back,’ and he went up to the piano and literally three to five minutes later he said, ‘Will you come up and listen to this?'” she says.” He had written this song called Paradise, from beginning to end, with all the lyrics, in like three minutes.”

The Goop founder says she still goes to “a lot” of Coldplay concerts with her children but reveals that her 11-year-old daughter, Apple, fangirls over Taylor Swift. (“She’s very savvy, she keeps her clothes on, she writes her music, she has good values. She’s a good girl,” Paltrow gushes of the pop princess.)

As for her BFF Beyoncé, Paltrow admits that she knew Queen Bey had something special in the works before releasing her visual album in 2013.

“She played me a bunch of the videos before it dropped. I had been with her a lot when she had been working on it. I’m not sure I knew … oh, everybody stand by, but I knew kind of the general plan and what she was going to do. I knew there was going to be a surprise,” she says.

Of “Drunk in Love,” Paltrow says, “I get chills from this song. It just makes you want to move.”

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Favorite Songs

• Favorite Happy Song: “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death” from Above by CSS
• Favorite Love Song: “Song for Zula” by Phosphorescent
• Favorite Rock ‘n’ Roll Song: “No Cars Go” by Arcade Fire
• Favorite Song from High School: “Gangsta Gangsta” by N.W.A. and “Buffalo Stance” by Neneh Cherry
• Favorite Sexy Song: “Wishing Well” by Terence Trent D’Arby
• Favorite Dance Song: “Drunk in Love” by Beyoncé
• Favorite Duet: “Made in America” by Jay-Z and Kanye West
• Favorite Sad Song: “Everything’s Not Lost” by Coldplay
• Favorite Song About a City: “Lights” by Journey and “A Heart in New York” by Simon and Garfunkel
• Favorite R&B Song: “Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart” by Alicia Keys
• Favorite Country Song: “Angel from Montgomery” by Bonnie Raitt

Gwyneth Paltrow’s interview with John Benjamin Hickey airs on April 20 at 8 am ET on Radio Andy.