GWYNETH Paltrow claims her split from Chris Martin "broke the internet".

The 'Iron Man' star - who has Apple, 11, and Moses, nine with the Coldplay frontman - announced she was "consciously uncoupling" from the musician in April and insists they were unfairly slammed for using the term to describe their separation.

She said: "When I was announcing my husband and I were separating and we were trying to follow this specific way of doing it and the philosophy is conscious uncoupling and we like broke the f***ing internet.

"It's such a hard time personally and then you have this added layer of all this criticism."

Despite the criticism, the 43-year-old beauty - who is now dating the executive producer of 'Scream Queens', Brad Falchuk - is glad the former couple were able to "introduce" the concept to people who had never heard it before.

Speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City, she said: "Then when you look back you go, 'Well, this is actually kind of a good thing to talk back, introducing in some way.' Like, what if you could break up in a way where you remain a family even though you're not a couple? And what would be that effect on your children and your community?

"Even though we did it in an inelegant way - because it was such an emotional time and we didn't give it as much context and didn't explain [that it] wasn't something that I was inventing - it was already an established theory."