Gwyneth's Advice for Brad

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/29/2005 at 08:00 AM EDT

Gwyneth Paltrow has some advice for ex-boyfriend Brad Pitt and his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston: Mum's the word.

"I learned my lesson at 24," the Shakespeare in Love Oscar winner, 32, tells Time magazine. "It would be a lot easier on Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston now had they not talked to the press about each other and everything to begin with."

Paltrow and Pitt broke up in 1997, and she dated Ben Affleck, but she didn't publicize the relationships, nor discuss them in interviews.

The same sealed-lips rule now applies to her life with her husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who is also the father of the couple's 15-month-old daughter, Apple. Mom and dad don't even appear in photos together.

"When I presented at the Oscars last year," Paltrow tells Time, "everyone would say to me 'Where's your husband? Is there trouble in the marriage?' And I was like, Why on earth would I bring my husband?"

She also says: "Our marriage is between us. If we decide to continue being together or not, it's our business."