Hamptonites who paid up to $2,500 to attend a benefit were not happy with Gwyneth Paltrow Saturday night.

Already disappointed that honorary chair Madonna didn’t show for the Amaryllis Farm Equine Rescue Organization party, at photographer Steven Klein’s Bridgehampton farm, guests became even more crestfallen when Paltrow spent most of the time off-limits in Klein’s house.

“Gwyneth stayed in the house from the beginning,” sniffed one guest. “She was hanging inside the house with Steven and with Kelly Klein nearly the entire time. Nobody could go inside the house — they had security blocking the way. It was so rude.”

Even Billy Joel’s wife, Katie, was turned back, says a source.

Making matters even more annoying, people kept bumping into things in the dark out on the photographer’s horse riding field.

“It was a ‘black’ party — everybody had to wear black,” our source says. “[Klein] had a bonfire off to the side, but there were no lights whatsoever, and his backyard is huge. He has these black benches all around, and people kept crashing into them.”

Paltrow did emerge for about five minutes to address the group, which included Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Andrew Saffir, Nicole Miller, Sale Johnson, Russell Simmons, Rosanna Scotto, Rocco DiSpirito and Marcy Warren.

After crying, “I can’t see! I can’t see!” as she teetered to the field, the “Iron Man” star talked about Amaryllis, which helps stop the slaughter of horses, donkeys and mules for dog meat in Mexico.

Paltrow then introduced Olympic dressage coach Robert Dover, who rode Maksymilian, a gelding that had been rescued from slaughter and is now worth $1 million. She also read a poem about the legendary horse Snowman, “whose heart was as radiant as the white snow” and who was rescued by Harry de Leyer, a Long Island riding instructor.

“In saving the horse, Harry became an instrument of the divine,” said Paltrow. “When we make the only choice possible, and that is to love, then all of us become what we were intended to be. We are the power.”

If only Paltrow would use her power, some thought, to let everybody into the house, which is where she quickly sequestered herself the rest of the evening. But all’s well that ends well: After an auction of Klein’s photographs, the evening raised $200,000 for the charity.

Source

WENN