Keira Knightley has opened up about the intense paparazzi harassment she endured at the height of her Pirates of the Caribbean fame, revealing that the experience drove her to a breaking point.
Speaking with The Times of London, Knightley said, “I went mad” as photographers stalked her relentlessly and shouted insults to provoke her or those around her.
It was mostly ‘slut’ sometimes. Particularly if I was with someone — a boyfriend, my brother or my dad. They were trying to get a reaction out of them — provoking people into punching them, so they could sue. And that was the time the crashes started happening — they were forcing people off the roads, then getting even bigger money for pictures of a crashed actress or whatever. And then Britney shaved her head so it was like, ‘Great — we can push them into doing something fucking crazy.’
she recalled.
The constant harassment led Knightley to adopt unusual strategies to make herself less appealing to tabloids.
I started wearing the same clothes every day. Three pairs of the same jeans, stripy T-shirt, boots. I gave all my other clothes away.
she said.
Knightley even took drastic measures when followed.
If I was being followed, I stopped walking. I’d literally stand there. Stock still. One day, I stood there for five hours. ‘If you’re still there, I’m not going. I’m not going to move.’ … [And then] it wasn’t a valuable shot to them if it was always me in the same clothes, standing still. There’s only so many times you can write, ‘Ooh, she’s wearing the same clothes,’ with a photo of me standing still. It gets boring.
she explained.
The pressure eventually led Knightley to consider quitting acting altogether. I
t got so extreme that I decided to walk away. My family backed me. They said, ‘Just fucking walk.’” She then left London and traveled across Europe, taking trains and visiting museums without being recognized. “I was very good. Museums, trains… no one expects to see you there. I was very scruffy, which they also wouldn’t have expected. You just don’t make eye contact, go a bit hunched. I kind of slithered.
she said.
Knightley, who was just 18 when Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise made her an international star, previously told The Times that fame came at a “big price.” She said she was “stalked by men” and often told that such treatment was something she “deserved” for being famous. “It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye,” she said.
Keira Knightley can currently be seen in the Netflix original film The Woman in Cabin 10, now streaming.
Source: Variety